Melissa Pavlik, director of 萝莉社鈥檚 Writing Center, will use a $5,000 Illinois Humanities grant to support incarcerated writing students who are graduates or students of the North Park Theological Seminary鈥檚 Master of Arts in Christian Ministry with Restorative Arts program.
鈥淭his funding is vital for our project because it allows us to amplify our writing group members鈥� voices in a manner accessible to outside family, community members, and the general public,鈥� Pavlik said.
Since 2023, Pavlik has led the weekly writing group called WRIT112 at Stateville Correctional Center (whose population has temporarily relocated to Illinois River Correctional Center). Many of the group members are also North Park writing tutors.
Pavlik plans to spend the grant on producing the group鈥檚 anthology of writing and visual art, Writing from Both Sides of the Moon, which North Park鈥檚 Office of Civic Engagement will display at a Catalyst event in April 2025 alongside Feather Bricks, a magazine Pavlik produces.
In September 2024, Illinois Humanities awarded $147,000 to 13 groups and six individuals, including Pavlik, to fund visionary and innovative projects that use the humanities as a tool to examine mass incarceration and collectively shape a more just future. Read more .