On January 28, the Academy of Music in Northampton hosted the premier of the documentary “Finding the Words: The Story of Voices from Inside”. The film tells the story of women who used creative writing to process their experiences with jail and addiction. It features alumni and professors from Holyoke Community College.
The premier was sponsored by the Arts Equity Group and the City of Northampton. The Voices from Inside program has been around since the late 1990s and was funded by a $15,000 grant from MassHumanities. It offers creative writing workshops to women in prison, and continues to support them once they return to their communities.
Danielle Amodeo, Director of the Arts Equity Group and Producer of the documentary: “When audiences come to see this documentary, they're going to go inside the Franklin County prison system. They're going to go inside the homes of women who have had lived experience with incarceration and addiction. And, hopefully, they'll come away from the film with a new perspective and new understanding of the experiences that these women have been through.”
Listen to Danielle Amodeo’s interview about the documentary on WAMC Northeast Public Radio: https://www.wamc.org/news/2023-01-27/documentary-about-jailed-women-who-use-creative-writing-as-therapy-scheduled-to-premier