Category: Editor’s Note

Happy New Year friends and lovers of The Beat Within! What an honor to have this publication in your hands to read and absorb, with the hope that the following words give you that shot in the arm of inspiration and support.  Publishing a print magazine in this day and time  – a website, emails blasts/newsletter, social media, and let us not forget the many writing and conversation workshops we lead each week inside various juvenile halls, schools, community based organizations, the San Francisco County Jail and inside San Quentin State Prison…  well, it’s a lot of work, but truly

Welcome friends to another amazing issue of writing and art from the inside. Happy 2019! For our first double issue of the year, we’re pleased to present you two more reflections from our wonderful interns at Urban School of San Francisco, where students have been transcribing pieces for The Beat Without. Below you’ll find a passionate essay written by Lizzie, where she explores how hate isolates people from each other, and how The Beat Within works against hate by connecting people with radically different experiences and perceptions. We’re also featuring Sunil, who writes an empowering and motivation letter to his past self, inspired by a piece that he transcribed by one of our longtime Beat Without writers, Vernon Smith. We’re deeply humbled to be able to provide this bridge between our writers on the inside and writers on the outside. Thank you for your excellent work, Lizzie and Sunil!

Welcome to our year-end double issue, 23.51/24.01. What a year we have had! Thank you all for making The Beat Within the success that it is. We could not do it without you all. As for this issue, there is so much good writing that awaits you readers, we are grateful you stopped by this latest editorial note. As some of you know, we have an amazing partnership with the students at the Urban School of San Francisco. Throughout the school year (for some even during the summer) our high school interns are hard at work transcribing pieces of The Beat Without and supporting our community workshops. Here we’re featuring the reflections of two of our interns, Tara and Sally, who both provide insight into their experiences. In Tara’s piece, the pieces of The Beat Without are like a portal in her hands, fostering a sense of connection to an individual she’ll never know face-to-face. In Sally’s essay, The Beat has given her a chance to see incarcerated folks as individuals, rather than a group solely defined by their common circumstance. We’re so grateful for our partnership with the Urban School, and to be able to work with young people on the outs to challenge perceptions of incarceration. Stay tuned for more of our interns’ reflections! Enjoy the following!

Greetings friends! We welcome you wonderful readers and supporters to yet another fabulous double issue (23.49/50) of writing and art from the inside and beyond!  We are certainly thrilled that you have this one-of-a-kind publication in your hands. As is the case with each issue, there is plenty of solid standout writings from our many contributors – from our young and old who deliver their truths from inside the numerous detention facilities we visit, to those who send their submissions to us via snail mail, as well as those in the free world who courageously share their truths each week! 

This week we welcome to our editorial section the reflections of two of our high school interns from the Urban School of San Francisco, Melia and Yudi. 

These past few months we’ve had the pleasure of working with fifteen Urban students as they transcribed writing for our Beat Without pages, immersing themselves into the thoughts of our prolific writers. 

In Melia’s, “A World Without Borders,” she explores the breakdown of the single-story narrative, and in her words, how “those living inside do not have one identity that is defined by suffering.” 

Greetings from chilly, Portland, Oregon!  We have spent the last few days up in beautiful Portland, as we work to get our writing workshops back up and running inside the Donald J. Long Juvenile Hall, given our longtime partner, PSU (Portland State University) Capstone is no longer running the groups. The exciting part,  probation wants to continue The Beat Within and helped us to arrange a volunteer orientation, which we held the other day. We had over 11 participate in the orientation, many very familiar with doing workshops during their time at PSU.  Today, the best part, we are back

Greetings friends of The Beat Within! Welcome  to double issue 23.45/46!  This magazine that you have in your hands, like other issues, took a lot of hard work and effort from all of our staff and dedicated writers to complete.  We would like to send a big shout-out to everyone: from all the counselors and teachers inside the various Juvenile Halls that we do workshops in, to all our workshop facilitators, editors, graphics lay-out designer, and all the juvenile hall youth, the Ranches, community based organizations, schools, and all our friends and writers from our BWO Section that are locked

As much as we welcome editorial notes from all of you faithful readers, we are incredibly grateful to have our dear friend and colleague, OT, always ready and willing to share his thoughts and wisdom with  us readers of The Beat Within.  For those of you new to the ed note, OT, has been a part of The Beat Within dating back many years, when he was a young contributor in our weekly workshops inside San Mateo County Juvenile Hall. From those days we certainly have come a long way.  OT is truly more than a colleague, he is a

Greetings friends! If you came to this editorial note this week hoping to read the latest update from our dear friend, OT, in Nicaragua, you’ll most likely have to wait until the next issue, given our longtime friend and colleague, Kathy Ellison, has so kindly offered to write this week’s wonderful ed note!  Kathy not only gives us an excerpt from her 2010 book, “Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention,” she also gives us a snapshot of her life.  We are incredibly grateful to Kathy for her years of commitment to The Beat Within workshops in the Marin County Juvenile

Welcome friends to our amazing publication, 23.39/40, of writing and art from inside juvenile hall and beyond.  This latest issue has our initial writings from our recent workshops inside  Sacramento County Juvenile Hall and Sonoma County Juvenile Hall. We are thrilled about our new partnerships and all the potential.  Like every issue, there is plenty to read and find inspiration from, if it’s the featured writings, POW writings, Community writings or the BWO, we know you will find something in this issue that speaks to you.  All right, allow us to cut to the chase and hand over the keyboard

Greetings Beat lovers. It’s an incredible honor to Though I now understand how to deal with what sometimes have this sixty-page publication in your hands and these words being read by you today/tonight. It is hard to believe this is issue 19.45/46! Wow, what a fabulous issue to share with you all too. There are so many solid contributions to read and be inspired by, as well as pieces that simply strike a nerve of sadness and pain. We cannot thank you contributors enough for the love you share with us each week in our workshops and those of you who write