Challenging mass incarceration through books, education, and community engagement.
Thousands of Appalachians voted in Appodlachia’s 2020 award show, and we’re excited to announce that the Appalachian Prison Book Project was named the Appalachian Organization/Non-Profit of the Year!
Read More “APBP Is the 2020 Appalachian Nonprofit of the Year”
“War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.”
So goes the official slogan of George Orwell’s Oceania, a hyper-surveillance-based police state underpinned by the illogic of doublethink.
Read More “How Much Does It Cost to Read a Free Book on a Free Tablet?”
APBP is taking on our next big challenge: creating and supporting credit-bearing college courses for incarcerated students. And we need your help.
Our work emanates from two interconnected premises: education is a basic human right, and engaging the community in educational justice efforts is a requisite component to building sustainable restorative justice models.
Since 2004, we have mailed over 50,000 books.
100 imprisoned people (75 women, 25 men) and 27 volunteers have participated in our book clubs.
30 incarcerated students have earned WVU college credit.
We’ve hosted 25+ wrapping parties for community volunteer groups.
But don’t just take it from us. Hear what our friends on the inside have to say about our work.
APBP is honored to announce the recipients of the 2022–2023 education scholarship: Aaron Blankenship and Justin Adams. Now in its second year, the APBP education scholarship provides financial support to individuals pursuing higher education after being incarcerated in the state…
Read More Announcing the Recipients of Our 2022–2023 Education Scholarship
On October 31, 2021, APBP’s volunteer coordinator Dennis Allen died suddenly. Dennis was a beloved member of our community. As former APBP president Elissa Momen put it, his presence was “powerful and unapologetically real.” Dennis was a professor in the…
April is National Poetry Month. We are honored to share this poem by Rayna Momen, current board member and long-time volunteer at APBP.
I have passed the first book I received on to two others so far, and plan to do so until the cover falls off! (The library here can fix it up when I donate it.)
Because of your book program sending me Michie’s West Virginia Code Annotated, I was able to litigate an amended sentence order from life without parole to eligibility for parole after serving 15 years. In other words, you helped save my life. Thank you.
In many ways this [book club] and your time/effort have been an emotional and intellectual lifeline for me.