Putting pen to paper has always been considered therapeutic. Writers from Sylvia Plath to Margaret Atwood have scribed their tales into novels, and now a group of female inmates from the Grants, New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility will bind their musings into a new book.

Award winning Chicano author, Jimmy Santiago Baca, decided to start The Prison Literacy Project after speaking to 12,000 prisoners at a New Mexico conference.

“When I was finished speaking, one of the convicts yelled at me ‘It would be nice if you actually did something for us instead of leaving',” Baca recalls. “It made me realize what a good life I was living. I have invitations to speak all over the world. I have everything I could need. I felt guilty that I wasn't giving back.”

Baca, who has published more than nine works of poetry and fiction, as well as audio CDs, of his work, is no stranger to corrections.  He spent six years in an Arizona prison where he began to write poetry. However, his own incarceration was not the focus of the creative writing program, where the females take center stage.

“I learned so much from these women,” Baca says. “They told me things I never expected to hear. They became vulnerable. They told incredible stories and took ownership of their past experiences. They have seen a lot of abuse, but they blew me out of the water with their writing and their passion. Their openness restored my faith in human kind.”

Thirty-five of NMWCF women participated in Baca's project. The work they produced was so impressive that he's currently compiling the best pieces for an anthology, and PBS is working on a documentary about the class.

According to NMWCF's education liaison, Denis Porter, this was a chance for the participants to open up and let it all out during three hour classes.

“We went through a few boxes of Kleenex every class,” Porter says. “These women spoke and wrote openly about the traumas done to them and the traumas they did to others. The majority of the women surprised us. They are very powerful writers. It was a great outlet for them and we did some amazing things.”

The class did not just consist of writing, however. For twelve weeks, offenders went through a required reading list of nine books, which were supplied by the Corrections Corporation of American, which manages the New Mexico facility. 

“This was done at very little cost,” Porter explains. “We simply supplied copies of the nine books for the ladies and they took it from there. We had many different types of women in this class: gang members, long term drug users, mothers. It was just jaw-dropping.”

Baca maintains that although the class means something different for each woman, he believes writing served as a way for many of them to work through difficult personal issues.

“Many of these women told me they had never met a man like me, because I wasn't abusive or using them,” he recalls. “This was really a chance for them to lay it all on the table, so to speak. They taught me the value of respect, listening and friendship. I can only hope they learned the same from me.”

According to Porter, the women who participated in the program had to meet a number of requirements. All had to have perfect behavior records. There could be no violence or drug write-ups while they participated. In return, they were allowed to participate in a class run by a world renowned author,  and they had the chance to learn more about themselves.

“All class participants had to go through a program called Education and Cognitive Thinking,” Porter adds. “The program focuses on openly discussing the issues that brought them to prison and the issues that keep them here. We're using The Prison Literacy Project in conjunction with the concept of cognitive thinking. It's about changing the mindset of being a victim. We're trying to teach them to develop better thinking processes.”

The driving force behind The Prison Literacy Project is to improve reading and writing skills among inmates, lower recidivism rates, and decrease anger, depression and anxiety. Porter and Baca say the results from the female facility were so positive that classes will soon start in other institutions.

“We want to take this class far,” says Porter. “We're going to start another class because of the results we had here. We will reuse books for other classes, and we're finding interns that want to help us out. This has just been fantastic for the women and we hope that it will continue for other offenders.”

For Baca, who developed close relationships with the offenders, receiving letters from the talented ladies of NMWCF was just the inspiration he needed to expand the program and continue to spread the therapy of writing through corrections.

“I have letters from these women saying how much this class moved them,” he says. “They became vulnerable and that is ultimately what made this program so successful.”

Keep an eye out for Baca's anthology of the NMWCF women, as well as the PBS documentary about The Prison Literacy Project.