Professor Buzz Alexander, founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) at the University of Michigan, has authored a new book celebrating twenty years of PCAP. The book is NOW AVAILABLE from the University of Michigan Press.

Buzz’s Book Tour Dates:

Battle Creek, MI
(after) Prison: Denied Opportunities or Safer Communities?
Friday, Oct. 1st @ 7:00pm
Book reading, signing & Prisoner Art Exhibit at Urban Art Museum
60 Calhoun St., Battle Creek, MI

Los Angeles
Friday, October 15th @ 6:30p.m.
Book reading & signing at Mama’s Hot Tamales
2122 West 7th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90057
More information: 213-487-4300

San Francisco
Tuesday, October 19th @ 7:00pm
Book reading & signing at the Green Arcade
1680 Market St. San Francisco, CA 94102
http://events.sfgate.com/san-francisco-ca/events/show/144238505-is-william-martinez-not-our-brother-20-years-of-the-prison-creative-arts-project

New York
Education and Incarceration: A Conversation with the Founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project
Thursday, October 28th @ 5:00-7:00pm
Book reading, practitioner panel & signing at Teachers College
Milbank Chapel (Zankel Hall) Teachers College, Columbia University
525 W. 120th Street, New York, NY 10027
More information: 314-651-4862

Panel Includes:
–Kathy Boudin, of the Weather Underground and Columbia University’s Incarceration Working Group
–Jondou Chen, Teachers College Student Press Initiative
–Chris Emdin, author of “Affiliation and Alienation: Hip Hop, Rap and Urban Science Education”
–Michael Rebell, Executive Director, Campaign for Educational Equity
–Carol Shapiro, seminar leader, “Rethinking Criminal Justice: Moving Beyond an Individual Approach”
–Julia Taylor, contributing author, “Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre”

Ann Arbor, MI
Wednesday, November 3rd @ 7:00p.m.
Reading & signing at Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery in Room 100
University of Michigan, Central UM Campus
More information: http://www.press.umich.edu/map

Baltimore
Saturday, November 13th @ 2:30p.m.
Reading & signing at Enoch Pratt Free Library in the Poe Room
400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
More information: 410-396-5494
http://www.prattlibrary.org/calendar/series.aspx?folder=610

Washington DC
Sunday, November 14th @ 3:00pm
Reading & Dialogue with Arts for Change Activists
Potter House Bookstore
1658 Columbia Rd NW, Washington DC

Chicago
Friday, November 19th @ 7:00pm
A Dialogue on Prison Arts, Mass Incarceration and Community Engagement
Reading, panel & signing
Resident’s Dining Hall at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum
800 S. Halsted at UIC, Chicago IL
Seating is limited please RSVP: Chicagoprisonarts@gmail.com

Panelists include:
-Mariame Kaba, Founder and Director, Project NIA
-Meade Palidofsky, Artistic Director, Storycatchers Theatre
-Jonathan Shailor, Founder and Director of the Shakespear Prison Project
-Amanda Klonsky, Girls Program Director, Free Write Jail Arts and Literacy Program

Austin
Monday, November 29th @ 6:30-8:30pm
Reading & platica featuring Author, Save Our Youth, Ex-Pinta Support Alliance, & the Hutto Visitation Program
Resistencia Bookstore
1801-A South First St.
Austin, TX 78704
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A1117905

Detroit
Thursday, December 9th @ 7:00pm
Reading & panel discussion
Leopold’s Books
15 East Kirby Street
Detroit, MI 48202

Helping Our Prisoners Elevate
Friday, December 17th @ 6:00pm
Reading and panel discussion
Urban Network Bookstore
5740 Grand River, Detroit

Panelist include:

Readings in Petoskey, Maine, and Philadelphia coming soon!!

About the book:
“Prisons are an invisible, but dominant, part of American society: the United States incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world, with 25 percent of the world’s prisoners currently held within its borders. In Michigan, the number of prisoners rose from 3,000 in 1970 to more than 50,000 by 2008, a shift that Buzz Alexander witnessed firsthand when he came to teach at the University of Michigan.

Is William Martinez Not Our Brother? describes the University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), a pioneering program founded in 1990 that works with incarcerated youth and adults in Michigan juvenile facilities and prisons. Alexander recounts the genesis and evolution of this radically pragmatic and original system that begins with university courses for credit, then offers students a university-based nonprofit organization through which they may continue and deepen their practice, and finally gives them a national network as well as connections with the national movement resisting mass incarceration in this country, and with social careers in general.

By giving incarcerated individuals an opportunity to participate in the arts, PCAP enables them to withstand and often overcome the conditions and culture of prison, the policies of an incarcerating state, and the consequences of mass incarceration.

The book is also a deeply personal account of Alexander’s long commitment to confronting the continually rising numbers of prisoners in America, his dedication as an educator, and his attempts to provide a way to reach out on a practical and emotional level to inmates. The model he describes applies to both public scholarship and everyday politics and will inspire readers in all fields.”

Buzz spoke recently at Dartmouth college. Read about that presentation in The Dartmouth.

Recent news about the book….

‘Is William Martinez Not Our Brother?’
Inside Higher Ed
August 23rd, 2010
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/23/alexander

ANN ARBOR: U of M-based Prison Creative Arts Project enters 21st year
The Heritage Newspapers
September 5, 2010
http://www.heritage.com/articles/2010/09/05/life/doc4c840b65b4dbc635004488.txt

Utah inmates escape through art
by Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
September 13, 2010
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/50179924-78/art-prison-says-inmates.html.csp?page=1

Creating art from within: A profile of the Prison Creative Arts Project
by Chantel Jennings
The Michigan Daily
September 20th, 2010
http://www.michigandaily.com/content/pcap?page=0%2C0

The Prison Focus radio show with Leo Brutta on KPOO
KPOO
October 21st, 2010

Change Makers Buzz Alexander
TheMediaCenter5
October 25th, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMediaCenter5#p/u/13/JeFj8HF0IOs

ARTFORMS: Art Behind Bars
Interlochen Public Radio
November 4th, 2010
http://ipr.interlochen.org/artforms/episode/10782

Recent panel discussion addresses the value of arts in prisons
by Julia Eussen
Ann Arbor.com
November 5th, 2010
http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/books/recent-panel-discussion-addresses-the-value-of-arts-in-prisons-1/

Literary Treats for Politics and Policy Geeks
by Bill Castanier
Dome
December 16, 2010
http://domemagazine.com/bookit/bookit1210

Art Behind Bars: How an Innovative Program Changes Lives
by Lauren Monsen
America.gov
December 22, 2010
http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2010/December/20101221182141nerual0.936947.html?CP.rss=true

College to host prison art lecture
by Rachel Brougham
Petoskey News
February 8, 2011
http://www.petoskeynews.com/community/null-college-to-host-prison-art-lecture-20110208,0,2480043.story