Named after the carrier pigeons of old, delivering messages to far-away places, The Carrier Pigeon Post newspaper provides hope through stories and education. We seek to transform the lives of those presently and formerly incarcerated and accomplish this by leveraging the power of story to provide narrative-inspired cultural literacy.
Story-based cultural literacy encourages the formerly incarcerated to imagine an alternative future and become architects of their own destiny—proven enablers of a self-efficacy that results in post-incarceration desistance and flourishing. We translate cultural literacy into cultural confidence and competency.
"You cannot talk about paying a debt to society from a jail cell without windows… There is no humane punishment without a horizon. No one can change their life if they don't see a horizon. And so many times we are used to blocking the view of our inmates." -Pope Francis
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It all started with some simple correspondence with a few incarcerated individuals. Then some books were sent to those incarcerated, books filled with stories that proved liberative to those confined to a cell.
Over the course of a decade, one at a time, books were slowly but surely sent to various incarcerated persons in institutions all over the state of Florida. Word, slowly but surely, made its way back about the value and importance of these books, about how what was found inside the books,the stories they told, inspired and nurtured hope. The desire was for more—to have repeated and widespread reach, to impact more people, more often, and to inspire and to accommodate long-term intellectual growth. And so, The Carrier Pigeon Post was born.
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Dr. Sonya Shetty Cronin brings 20 years of experience as a Humanities professor (including study abroad international programs) and is a published academic author. She has sent books into prisons for over a decade and is the co-founder of a reentry home where she worked directly with those who have experienced incarceration. She has seen the power of story give meaning and direction to the lives of both aimless and anxious college students and formerly incarcerated.
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Hannah Katanic is a UX/Product Designer. She has worked with several nonprofit and for-profit businesses to create newsletters, magazines, websites, physical products and more. Hannah has also worked with and raised awareness regarding the plight of formerly incarcerated through her nonprofit work.
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Joseph Gans is the owner of Au Peche Mignon, a French Pastry Shop in North Florida. As a small business owner for 23 years, Joseph has had the pleasure of employing and working alongside those who were formerly incarcerated. He brings to Carrier Pigeon this experience, as well as his resourcefulness, attention to niche and artifact, and his entrepreneurial business expertise.
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Micah McCreary is the President and John Henry Livingston Professor of Theology at New Brunswick Theological Seminar in New Brunswick, New Jersey, as well as a licensed clinical therapist. He is experienced in support structures for those incarcerated and those reentering society. Dr. McCreary is the author of Trauma and Race, and is well versed in the multifaceted aspects of incarceration’s effects on families and minority communities.
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Dr. Carey C. Newman brings 35 years of experience as a humanities professor, scholar, and author. Newman has spent 30 years as an academic book publisher and editor, overseeing 800+ academic books into print. As a book editor, Newman taught academic authors the craft of storytelling (see his Mango Tree: The Art and Alchemy of Writing). Newman has decades of experience across the humanities, social sciences, and professional disciplines. He is adept at marrying the qualitative to quantitative to create an evidence based programmatic intervention.
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Machelle Madsen Thompson is a research and teaching faculty member at Florida State University with expertise in trauma, resilience, and child welfare. She worked in a children's hospital with those experiencing abuse. She earned her Ph.D. from the FSU College of Social Work with an Educational Psychology Statistics Measurement certification. She is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar, 2018, a liftime member of the American Professional Society, and a board member of the International Academy of Violence and Abuse.
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Lisa Blackwell is a professional writer, editor, and writing coach. After finishing her doctoral coursework in historical linguistics, she spent nearly a decade in software, which allowed her to travel the world and write during layovers in foreign airports. As an editor with Draft Works, she specializes in developmental editing for fiction, book design, and research. She is represented by Elizabeth Copps at Copps Literary Services.
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