Tony Vick has served over a quarter of a century on a life with parole sentence in Tennessee. He was born in 1962 in Clarksville, Tennessee, into a home of Southern Baptist parents and an older brother, all of which have died since his incarceration. Tony lived his life before prison as a closeted gay man, the secrets and lies led to his crimes. While in prison, Tony has worked as a tutor, newspaper editor, and clerk. He has begun book clubs, writing workshops and seminars, inmate led elder care programs, and writes about the experience of captivity in hopes to add context to the current prison reform movement. In 2018, his essays and poems, Secrets from A Prison Cell: A Convict’s Eyewitness Accounts of the Dehumanizing Drama of Life Behind Bars, was published by Cascade Books, 2018. His works have been included in multiple books and publications, most recently Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts; A 21st Century Plague: Poetry from a Pandemic, by Elayne Clift; The Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poetry; Turning Teaching Inside Out by Davis and Roswell; Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers; Abandoned Mine; Storms of the Inland Sea: Poems of Alzheimer’s and Dementia Caregiving. He furnishes Tweets for @cellsecrets.

Jeff Noland served ten years in a Tennessee prison and was released in 2020. He was born in 1964 in Dallas, Texas, into a two parent home, whose parents were Baylor University graduates. His parents divorced when he was ten and both remarried. Jeff has three brothers, one died from an auto accident at age fourteen. While incarcerated, Jeff took courses from Union University, facilitated Celebrate Recovery, played music in the church, organized community activities and successfully completed TRICOR job placement programming. Since his release from prison, Jeff found a house and a job he is excelling within, organized a legal/ support group for people on the registry, volunteers at No Exceptions Prison Collective, and has been part of several community and campaigns activities for disenfranchised people. Contact Jeff at [email protected]

Rev. Jeannie Alexander is the founder and former executive director of No Exceptions Prison Collective. She is also a co-founding resident of Earthfire Abbe, an interfaith community dedicated to restorative practices in earth stewardship and human rights. She has been a professor of Philosophy, Ethics, and Religion. She is a writer with essays published in several books, including And The Criminals With Him (Essays in Honor of Will D. Campbell and All the Reconciled) by Cascade Books, 2012. She is interviewed, lectures, and preaches frequently on the topics of mass incarceration as slavery, alternatives to prison, and transformative justice. She holds a JD from Cornell Law and a Masters in Religious Studies.