'This book pays attention to the micrology of women’s lived experiences in critical, creative, poetic and arts-based ways and facilitates the creative writing, voices and stories of women in prison to speak, write and be heard. This book will make a difference – it is a tour de force!' Maggie O’Neill, University College Cork

'This beautifully reflective book of stories written by women in prison, and stories of their painstaking, liberating writing, will stay with readers for a long time. The book is going to be a longtime companion for many narrative researchers and practitioners striving to work ethically, creatively, and for social justice.' Corinne Squire, University of Bristol

'This book pays attention to the micrology of women’s lived experiences in critical, creative, poetic and arts-based ways and facilitates the creative writing, voices and stories of women in prison to speak, write and be heard. This book will make a difference – it is a tour de force!' Maggie O’Neill, University College Cork

★ The author is a senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Basque Country, with a research background from Bath Spa University. She specializes in prison criminology and women's studies， possessing a solid and diverse professional perspective.
★ Highly praised by renowned scholars from the University of Cork and the University of Bristol， this work combines creative writing with prison research， presenting a novel research perspective and filling the research gap in related fields.
★ Using the creative writing workshop in British women's prisons as a real research platform， it focuses on the real voices and experiences of women in prison， making the research content highly realistic and authentic.
★ Defining prison writing as a form of resistance and self-renewal， this work provides a creative and feminist new approach for criminology research， combining academic and practical value.

Centred on creative writing workshops in UK women’s prisons, this book explores what happens when imprisoned women begin to tell their own stories which are shaped by disempowerment and social exclusion.
Blending creative practice with critical analysis, it positions prison writing as both a mode of resistance and a means of reimagining the self. It brings long-overdue attention to the voices of incarcerated women, so often marginalised within the wider prison estate and overlooked in criminological research. This is an urgent, compelling contribution to prison studies, creative criminology and feminist approaches to writing and pedagogy.

Rosalchen Whitecross is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Bath Spa University and Research Associate at Wits University in South Africa.

Foreword - Professor Maggie O'Neill
Preface – Towards Prison Writing as Narratives of Haunting

Part A: Women’s Imprisonment and Prison Writing
1. Context – Into the Mortuary of Keys
2. Seeking Women’s Prison Writing – an Encounter With the Empty Shelves of Time

Part B: Creative Writing Workshops in Prison
3. Creative Writing as Research Method – Writing and Reading Together
4. Positionality – Writer-Researcher

Part C: Critical Engagement With Women’s Prison Writing As Narratives of Haunting – a Writing Journey in Three Parts
5. Beginning the Journey – Maternal Connections
6. The Middle Journey – Crosscurrents in the Self As Site of the Struggle
7. Journey’s End – Ghosts
8. Conclusion – Journey Concludes to Continue