The Mission

Connecting Writers & Other Artists Impacted by the Criminal Legal System with Literary and Arts Communities Ready to Receive Them

We help members of the community provide returning citizens with:

  • Access to the missions and vocations of art in the world.
  • Resources and connections to help with reentry and reintegration.
  • Ways to engage deeply with arts, social-justice, and community-focused organizations.

We help people who’ve been directly impacted by the criminal legal system, especially those who have been incarcerated, connect to community, resources, and organizations ready to walk alongside them as they reenter and reintegrate with their communities; bring their work to the wider world; and learn how to practice the profession of artist in the world.

ReEntry Lab is also working to help bring into the world more stories created by, through, and with people who’ve been directly impacted by the criminal legal system. (We are all at least indirectly impacted.)

If you’d like to be a part of this work, please take our survey, sign up for the newsletter, and/or contact us to find out where you can fit in.

Let us know how you can help

What Can You Do?

There are many ways to help, no matter where or who you are. You can let us know your own resources and availability by taking our survey. We do not share your information outside ReEntry Lab.

Jobs

Everyone needs to eat, pay rent, buy necessities, and take care of themselves and their loved ones. Artists have the additional costs of making art; jobs – full-time, part-time, or gig work – are crucial.

Artistic Mentorship

Make yourself available to offer guidance and support as artists figure out how their own work can connect with the world. Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW) runs a mentor program for returning writers who were able to work with MPWW on the inside, but there is more need than available resources.

Workshop Instructors, Assistants, Participants

If you’re running a workshop, or you want a workshop run, and have space and a need to fill it, reach out and let us know – we’ll do our best to connect you with someone with appropriate interests and abilities.

Readings, Festivals, Showings

Reach out and let us know if you have opportunities for system-impacted writers and other artists! We’re happy to connect you with our members who have the talent and the desire to work with you to make your event a sucess.

Lived Experience with the Criminal Legal System and Incarceration

Creating a play, book, poem, story, series, screenplay, saga, or collection that tackles the criminal legal system? We can connect you with artists who have lived experience. and real expertise on the system and its human costs and impacts.

Photograph of Davi Gray, a white trans nonbinary woman with gray eyes. In this picture she is wearing pink hair, a jeweled stud in her right nostril, and a black shirt. She's standing in front of a blurred wood background and staring off to camera right.

Still have questions?

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Let’s talk!

Contact Us →

Land Acknowledgement

ReEntry Lab is located in Mni Sóta Makoce, unceded Dakota lands traditionally home to Dakota and Ojibwe peoples, many of whom were displaced or killed through both casual and deliberate acts of genocide.

There are eleven federally recognized American Indian tribes with reservations throughout Minnesota, seven Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) and four Dakota (Sioux), but the Native population is everywhere around us, and recognition of their stewardship of these lands and the harms perpetrated on them in the past and present is a vital part of our responsibility as inhabitants of the land.

You can learn more about Native Americans in Minnesota in many places. One such source is the Minnesota Historical Society’s MNopedia.

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