As a way to help sustain my writing, I started my own Substack newsletter called “Sentences” where I’ve been posting regularly. Substack is a way for writers to attract paid subscribers. You can sign up for free or consider becoming a monthly donor!

Little did I know when I launched my Substack, I’d be especially needed as a community journalist. In February, I reported on a hunger strike at the Champaign County jail. I had been in contact over the last year with a mother whose son led the strike.

Since then, a small group of us formed a new group, Community Justice Advocates, which is now lobbying the county board for a new contract to provide free phone calls from the jail.

Additionally, police have killed two Black youth this year in Rantoul, a small town outside of Urbana-Champaign. After I wrote a couple articles (here and here), the local media have finally picked up the story. Families of Azaan Lee and Jordan Richardson recently led a march for justice, likely the first march of its kind Rantoul has ever seen.

I was excited to publish an oral history of “Stateville Speaks” in the Chicago Reader this spring. I’m happy to be working with Chicago abolitionists on keeping alive one of the oldest prison publications in the country. I find it immensely rewarding helping those in prison get their art and writings into print.  

I was also commissioned to write an article for the Invisible Institute about Urbana police officer John Franquemont who was fired from the Urbana Police Department. I interviewed two women who were on the receiving end of the brutality dished out by officer Franquemont.

Lastly, in the final weeks of summer, I helped my friend Lisa Marie Rollins move to California where she took a job teaching theater at U-C Santa Cruz. I’m so excited to see Lisa begin this new chapter in her life!

Here we are taking a selfie on the campus with Santa Cruz and the Pacific Ocean in the background.