Several recent articles connect Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to abuse in the troubled teen industry. Art Levine’s The Dark Side of a Bain Success details how neglect at Bain controlled-for-profit teen residential programs have resulted in patient abuse, emotional trauma, and even death. Susie Madrak’s Child Sexual…
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Talking Community at Athica, October 10
This Wednesday, October 10, Talking Community: An Evening of Poetry, Storytelling, & Song takes place at Athica. Alan Flurry, Janet Geddis, Marc Tissenbaum, Beth Hall Thrasher and I will be reading. Star Room Boys frontman Dave Marr will play some songs. This event is in conjunction with their current exhibition, Center, which “explores current ideas of community…
Southern Women Writers Conference
I’m headed to the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College. Lots of great speakers: Isabel Wilkerson (author of Warmth of Other Suns, my favorite history ever), rocker and writer Marshall Chapman, poet Stacey Lynn Brown (love Cradle Song), A Dry Grass in August’s Anna Jean Mayhew and so many more… Excited to attend a…
Escuela Caribe and Crosswinds/ Caribbean Mountain Academy Updates
This past Wednesday, Kidnapped for Christ filmmaker Kate Logan, Jesus Land author Julia Scheeres, journalist Kathryn Joyce (who wrote the Roloff/Hepzibah House expose for Mother Jones), and others appeared on the Ann Walker Show (September 12 edition). They discussed the history of New Horizons Youth Ministries and similar fundamentalist reform schools, their abuses, the lack of…
Why NHYM Alumni Are Concerned about Crosswinds
In 2011, Escuela Caribe and its parent company New Horizons Youth Ministries shut down. The property was donated to Crosswinds, a subsidiary of Lifeline Youth Ministries. At first we celebrated. However, now we alumni are concerned.Caribbean Mountain Academy, a division of Crosswinds, is predominantly staffed by former New Horizons Youth Ministries/ Escuela Caribe employees. These are…
Captivated by Compliance
We were celebrating Beth’s birthday at the Branded Butcher, but all I could think of was Compliance. This weekend I’m interviewing the director, Craig Zobel, and I’d just finished watching the film. Based on true events, Compliance is set in a fast food restaurant in suburban Ohio. A stressed manager (Ann Dowd) gets a call during a…
Dusk at the Cubist Castle
I moved to Athens, Georgia a few years after Escuela Caribe, knowing I needed to be surrounded by people compelled to create. Around the same time a group of artists moved here from Ruston, LA. Back home they’d formed bands like the Synthetic Flying Machine and the Gerbils, discovered Daniel Johnson and the Tall Dwarfs on college…
Petition to End Abuse of Children at Caribbean Mountain Academy (Escuela Caribe)
In 2011, Escuela Caribe, the Christian reform school where I was incarcerated in the early ’90s, was taken over by Lifeline Family and Youth Services. The Escuela Caribe campus is now called Caribbean Mountain Academy. (This is the fourth time this school’s name has been changed). Many of the staff who were employed by Escuela Caribe now work…
Tin House Writers Workshop Recap
I worked with an amazing group. We studied with Stephen Elliott. We focused on being honest and empathetic in our writing. More updates soon…
More from Tin House Writer’s Workshop
This place is paradise. Every night- readings. Last night this from Steve Almond. We didn’t just clap- we cheered. Most stood. Favorite panel today was with poets Matthew Dickman, Melissa Stein, and Matthew Zapruder…who discussed how to survive as a writer (They Paid Me with Drinks: How to Navigate the World of the Modern Poet). Zapruder warned…