Writing workshops across Pioneer Valley help women set their inner voices free

Members of Voices From Inside, including Amie Hyson, at left, who facilitates the groups at the RECOVER Project and the Franklin County jail, prepare for a public reading at the All Souls Church in Greenfield. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

By MAX MARCUS
Staff Writer

Published: 4/10/2019 5:24:12 PM

Kayla Barcomb never wrote poetry before Voices From Inside started a writing workshop for women in the Franklin County jail last May.

So at her first writing session, even though everyone was encouraging, she only read her work aloud at the end of the session, on the last call for reading.

“I was worried about, ‘What will people think? What are they going to say? I don’t know what I’m doing,’” Barcomb said. “But after that I would go back and spend a lot more time in my cell, and I would write and write and write. Now I’ve got two folders of stuff in my backpack, and I’ve got four notebooks at home. … All of that started from Voices From Inside.”

When Barcomb was released from prison in December, she immediately started going to Voices From Inside’s group at the RECOVER Project in Greenfield.

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