The people

Experience
speaks here.

Two writers connected across the prison wall, with a foreword by an organizer committed to transformative justice.

Tony D. Vick

Writer · Tutor · Organizer

Tony Vick has served over a quarter of a century on a life-with-parole sentence in Tennessee. Born in 1962 in Clarksville, Tennessee, he grew up in a Southern Baptist home with his parents and older brother, all of whom have died since his incarceration.

Tony lived before prison as a closeted gay man; secrets and lies led to his crimes. In prison, he has worked as a tutor, newspaper editor, and clerk. He has started book clubs, writing workshops and seminars, and inmate-led elder-care programs. He writes about captivity to add lived context to the movement for prison reform.

His essays and poems have appeared in Secrets from a Prison Cell, Pensive, A 21st Century Plague, The Avocet, Turning Teaching Inside Out, Keep Watch with Me, Abandoned Mine, and Storms of the Inland Sea.

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Jeff Noland

Prison consultant · Writer · Advocate

Jeff Noland served ten years in a Tennessee prison and was released in 2020. Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1964, Jeff has played music throughout his life—the reason he moved from Texas to Tennessee, where he worked in retail management.

While incarcerated, Jeff took courses through Union University, facilitated Celebrate Recovery, played music in church, organized community activities, and completed TRICOR job-placement programming.

Since release, Jeff has built a home and a career, organized legal and support work for people on the registry, volunteered with No Exceptions Prison Collective, and joined campaigns for disenfranchised people. He now offers prison consulting grounded in what he learned inside and during reentry. He also loves to run, play tennis, and kayak.

Jeff’s full profile Prison consulting

Rev. Jeannie Alexander

Organizer · Writer · Educator

Founder and former executive director of No Exceptions Prison Collective, Rev. Jeannie Alexander is also a co-founding resident of Earthfire Abbe, an interfaith community dedicated to restorative practices in earth stewardship and human rights.

She has taught Philosophy, Ethics, and Religion, and her essays appear in several books, including And the Criminals With Him. She lectures and preaches on mass incarceration as slavery, alternatives to prison, and transformative justice. She holds a JD from Cornell Law and a master’s in Religious Studies.