Recently, I was thrilled to see a post in social media regarding a successful model of a corrections facility in Nebraska intended to give women a safe and structured place to prepare to reenter society. The post was accompanied by a photo of a lobby that was clean, comfortable and modern looking. There was art on the walls. There was a photo of a cafeteria with typical cafeteria furniture, long tables and standard stools, but there was artwork and it appeared very clean and painted in a soft blue – nothing fancy, but certainly a nice place to eat. The description spoke of an area outside for children to play, how the facility encouraged interaction between those that lived there and their supporters on the outside, as well as classrooms. There were several positive comments after mine, and then there was this one –
“Wow, nicer than a lot of homes in Lincoln. Guess they deserve that?”
And that is the inspiration for our writing contest. NOT who deserves what. We won’t waste time trying to figure out who deserves what. Rather…
PROMPT: Have you ever received or witnessed someone else receive ‘grace’ – unmerited mercy and compassion – and how did that impact you or them?
My best bit of advice for any entry – remember the prompt. There are a lot of ways to approach it, as long as the prompt is the focus, your entry will be considered.
Only those who are incarcerated are eligible to participate.
We can’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is free – BUT, even if an entry doesn’t win, we consider entry permission to publish and edit. Sometimes we get so many excellent entries, they can’t all win, but they need to be shared.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered, as long as it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.
As done in our previous contests, I will narrow down the entries to the top ten, and then hand them off to individuals to rate the writing with a point system to determine winners.
PRIZES:
First Place: $75
Second Place: $50
Third Place: $25
DEADLINE: December 31, 2021. Decisions will be posted on or before January 31, 2022.
MAILING ADDRESS:
Walk In Those Shoes
Writing Contest Entry
P.O. Box 70092
Henrico, Virginia 23255
FOOTNOTE: WITS was inspired, in part, by the story of a boy named Jamycheal Mitchell. He stole some food – snacks – a haul of $5.05. He was mentally ill, but rather than being transferred to a facility that could help him after his arrest, he was left in a jail in Virginia to essentially starve to death. He was just 24 years old when he was arrested. He was dead several months later. ‘Wasting’ is a word used in his cause of death. In the months it took him to die, I wonder if anyone who passed by him wondered if he ‘deserved’ that.
Deserve? What does anybody deserve and how different would our world be if nobody spent time worrying if anyone else received compassion – whether they ‘deserve’ it or not?
