When it came time to build her spring schedule, Jasmyn Maingi had plenty of courses to pick from for her English major. She made the bold choice and signed up for Introductory Creative Nonfiction Writing with Dr. David Adams, held at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville as part of the Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project.
She is glad she made that choice and got beyond her own fears and society’s stereotypes.
“The first time I walked in I was very nervous,” Jasmyn says. “It is not at all what you think or that anybody would say that it is. You have to look past the fact that you’re in a prison and remember that you are around human beings who deserve to be treated as such.”
At the beginning of the class, the inside students were wary of Jasmyn as well, but over time everyone loosened up, in part due to the subject matter of the class. Much of the work involved writing, sharing and critiquing personal essays.
“It has been really interesting to see them all open up. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion,” Jasmyn says. “Learning to open up and be personal with these people that you don’t know and you’ll never talk to again because you’re not allowed to is an interesting experience.”
This experience in the OPEEP has shifted Jasmyn’s trajectory. She wants to be an advocate for people like her classmates who don’t have a voice and feel like their opinions don’t matter. She sees future publishing and editing projects that give a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.
“All those girls want so badly for their stories to be heard and they want to be published and they want to write books so people will read what they have to say,” Jasmyn says. “They are funny. Their writing is witty and humorous, but it is also genuine and down to earth.”
Learn more about OPEEP
- OPEEP home page
- OPEEP in the news
- Several class members contributed to the April 2023 issue of the Ohio State Lima’s literary journal Hog Creek Hardin. Visit the current issue