Poems about overcoming drug abuse, letters to future selves, artwork about hope and writings of childhood nostalgia were just some of the works featured in Women Initiating New Directions (WIND)’s anthology, “Women Writing Their Futures.”
The collection includes pieces created by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women participating in WIND’s Writing for Empowerment program.
Founded in 2018, WIND serves the growing number of women impacted by incarceration and the justice system. Through the help of volunteers, some of whom are Northwestern students and faculty, WIND provides tools, resources and support to assist women in reentering their communities.
Women at Cook County Jail and Grace House transition home participate in WIND’s four-course sequence, including Writing for Empowerment, Money Matters, Designing Your Future and Essential Life Skills. Participants receive a certificate of achievement and letter at the end of each multi-week course to show a judge or parole officer they are working to turn their lives around, WIND board member and NU Professor of Instruction Emeritus Penny Hirsch said.
“We’re trying to help these women that are in midlife,” Hirsch said. “We’re trying to give them life skills so that they can either reconnect with their family, get a job or find healthy ways to live, and we feel like those women are a neglected group.”
Hirsch, who received her PhD in English from NU in 1980, said she joined WIND upon retiring from 40 years as a professor for the NU Cook Family Writing Program. She currently serves as a feedback coach for Writing for Empowerment, where each woman is paired with a writing mentor.
Each week, the women work on a different worksheet package filled with writing exercises and reflection prompts, Hirsch said. The feedback coaches then respond with a letter, offering advice on their writing, personal anecdotes connected to the topic of the week and encouragement to continue putting their thoughts on paper.
The course aims to provide women with an outlet for creative expression while helping them improve their writing skills. Some of the exercises include writing a “Where I’m From” poem, creating a mind map of future goals and a meditation visualization activity. Students can read each other’s work through WIND’s weekly newsletter.
“The poems are more poignant,” Laura Pigozzi, WIND feedback coach and Writing Program professor said. “They’re basically answering the questions, but when you look at all the questions together, it makes the poem portrait.”
In the spring of 2024, Pigozzi asked students in her Science, Medical, and Health Writing class to act as feedback coaches for the WIND participants. She said the assignment was meant to help her students, some of whom are aspiring physicians, be cognizant of their biases and stereotypes toward incarcerated people. The students’ letters were then sent back to the women at WIND, Pigozzi said.
Besides Writing for Empowerment, WIND offers Designing Your Future, modeled after the Designing Your Life course at McCormick’s Segal Design Institute that WIND co-founder Kelly Costello had taught. Both courses help participants think creatively about the future, reframe negative beliefs and analyze how they balance different priorities in life.
WIND also modifies its coursework based on feedback from Lived Experienced Leaders (LELs), women in reentry who undergo compensated training through the WIND Bridge Program. Funded by NU’s Racial Equity and Community Partnership grant, the Bridge Program helps LELs develop leadership skills and give back to their communities.
Some LELs have become feedback coaches and workshop facilitators, passing on what they’ve learned. Current LEL Queen Brown is now working on her own book, “A Cry for Help: From a Life of Destruction to a Life of Recovery,” after completing WIND’s programs.
LELs have also participated in readings of their works on campus, hosted by NU Women’s Center, the NU Center for Civic Engagement and the Women’s Residential College.
WIND only continues to grow, with NU students interning with the program over the summer or through the NU Center for Civic Engagement, Hirsch said. Recently, WIND established a Junior Advisory Board, offering students an opportunity to contribute to the organization and meet like-minded peers.
After taking Pigozzi’s class, Weinberg sophomore Erika Ruiz-Yamamoto reached out to WIND to get involved. Hoping to become a feedback coach in the future, she is creating a calendar featuring some of the women’s artwork and helping WIND publish their second anthology with the theme of “empowering her voice.”
“In the book, we want to show that they’re more than just their incarcerated status,” Ruiz-Yamamoto said. “These are women that, just like us, have hopes and dreams.”
Email: laurenkee2028@u.northwestern.edu
X: @laurenhykee
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