The Arts Fuse • 15th November 2022

Book Review: "The Idea of Prison Abolition" -- An Unconvincing Case

The Idea of Prison Abolition is a worthwhile book, but Dr. Shelby’s case, philosophically strong as it might be, is not very likely to convince prison abolitionists.

The Arts Fuse • 27th October 2022

Book Review: "Manifesting Justice" -- Powerful Tools in the Struggle to Reform the American Justice System

“As the old saying goes,” writes author and former prosecutor Valena Beety, “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” Part narrative, part prescription, Manifesting Justice examines the many ways in which the legal system fails, and presents approaches to addressing those failures.

Harvard Graduate School of Education • 12th June 2022

Rookie Lessons

When I signed on as a teaching assistant with the Emerson Prison Initiative in the fall of 2018, I had 48 years of teaching experience. But when I walked through the series of locked doors and mechanical gates to get to the education building at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord for the first time, I felt like a rookie.

Emerson Prison Initiative/New Politics • 18th August 2021

Learning From My Students

I was sympathetic to the circumstances of some people who are incarcerated even before I’d been inside a prison.

WBUR • 8th January 2021

How The WNBA Helped Democrats Regain Control Of The Senate

Like lots of victories, the wide, deep and heroic results of Tuesday’s election have lots of fathers... and mothers.

WBUR • 25th September 2020

Littlefield: A Rhyme About Sports During A Pandemic

I hope you won’t conclude from this that I am out of sorts. And I am not complaining I no longer write of sports. The times provide, as I have found, and so there is no dearth Of more significant concerns here and around the earth.

23rd July 2020

I'm Sorry To Say It: This Should Be An American Summer Without Baseball

Would a diversion from the daily weight of the grim fact of the virus and the discouraging, shameful failure of the Trump administration to respond to the emergency be welcome? Sure. But sports? I don’t think so.

WBUR • 18th January 2019

I Told Stories For A Living. Now I Help Prisoners Tell Their Own

I decided to volunteer in the education program at a medium security prison, because, as a recent retiree, I had the time, and because I wanted to do something that might make me uncomfortable.