At Civitella Ranieri, I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts, and that was unsettling at first because I am used to writing with what I now realize is the comfort of distractions. Everything that distracts me back home is part of a familiar routine. Conversely,...
Dwayne Betts is a poet, lawyer, and founding CEO of Freedom Reads, an organization that builds beautifully handcrafted 500-book micro-libraries and places them within feet of the cells and bunks that people call home in prison.
Being at Civitella was like being, to quote Proust, “liberated from the order of time.” I experienced time in a gorgeous slow motion, watching as the ivy turned red against the castle walls and my drafts drifted as if of their own accord into new...
