Prison Books Project
The Beacon Prison Books Project is an organization that provides books to incarcerated persons throughout New York State, by request. People who are incarcerated in area prisons use free postcards or write letters to the organization to request books or book recommendations. The Prison Books Project then orders the books, connects with individual sponsors, packs up the books, and sends them to the person who made the request. Most of this activity happens through Binnacle Books in Beacon, NY, though the project now includes, as partner shops, Rough Draft Books, Half Moon Books, and World's End Comics, all in Kingson, NY, and Oblong Books in Rhinebeck, NY and Millerton, NY.
The Prison Books Project was born from connections among a few organizations and conversations, orbiting and supporting each other. Chief among those is the Beacon Prison Rides Project.
The Prison Books Project was seeded one night, a few folks lingering late at Binnacle after a reading by Brett Story. In her book, Prison Land, Story insists that we conceive of the prison “not as simply an edifice, as a place made up of walls and cells and mess halls,” but as a “set of relationships.” This is to say that when someone is incarcerated, they don’t merely go away to a prison-place. The entire latticework which is that person’s life is affected, entangled.
The Beacon Prison Books Project was co-founded by Laurie Dick, Kate Ryan, Annmarie Nye, Kristen Holt-Browning, and Mark Trecka. As of December 2024, the project has sent more than 5,000 books to incarcerated people throughout New York State.
To contact the Beacon Prison Books Project:
or
Beacon Prison Books Project
P.O. Box 132
Beacon, NY
12508