SUMMER 2025 WRITING CONTEST

Describe a time when you chose to be your authentic self when it took courage to do so.


ENTRY DETAILS: Only those who live in prison are eligible to participate & we don’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is also permission to edit & post in future WITS projects.
Submission is free.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered if it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.

PRIZES: First Place: $75 | Second Place: $50 | Third Place: $25

DEADLINE: September 30, 2025. Decisions will be posted to the WITS website by approximately November 30, 2025.

MAILING ADDRESS: Walk In Those Shoes, Writing Contest Entry, P.O. Box 70092, Henrico, Virginia 23255

Please share with any writers you know who live in prison. The details are also shared on Page 3 of the Summer 2025 Newsletter which has a sampling of the writing WITS accepts.

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Little One

i want to go back
and speak with the little one
console the tiny witness
tell him it is not his fault

-the wind whips

his mother explodes through the glass door
falls bloody and motionless to the floor
beige carpet sprinkled with thousands of shards
little one stands with fear-scorched
nostrils
alone

-the wind whips & whirls

a giant stumbles through the jagged
door
boots crunching every cursed step
slurred rage flips a table and
chairs fly across the room
a moan from the limp mass on the floor
distracts

-the wind whips & whirls
with no intent

little one flees through the shattered
doorway
runs down the middle of the street
in the middle of the night
bare feet slapping cooled asphalt
he is screaming out
for help
for someone

-the wind whips & whirls
with no intent
that we know

“it is not your fault little one”

ABOUT THE WRITER.  In addition to Geoff’s accomplishments as a writer, he has worked incredibly hard and graduated from North Carolina’s Field Ministry Program in 2023, earning a bachelor of arts degree that he uses to counsel and mentor his incarcerated peers. Not only is he choosing to serve and support others spiritually, but he takes on that task with grace and purpose.

Geoff is also one of 23 co-authors of Beneath Our Number: A Collaborative Memoir From Inside Mass Incarceration. All of his writing for WITS can be found here. He has also contributed to the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change with his poems Rainy Respite and A Sorry List – Abbreviated. In addition, Geoff has organized a small group that meets regularly to follow along with a curriculum designed to explore self discovery and personal growth. He has served over two decades of a life without parole sentence, and has chosen to invest his time in positive endeavors.

Geoff welcomes any and all feedback regarding his work. Comments left on this post will be forwarded to him, or you can contact him directly at the below address.

Geoff Martin #0809518
Columbus Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

He can also be contacted through GettingOut.com and TextBehind.com.

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