D. Razor Babb
Founding editor of the Corcoran Sun, and Mule Creek Post.
PEN Writing Awards winner, author of several novels and informationals, including, “Icicle Bill”, ” Goodbye Natalie”, “Last Lockdown”, the ” American Prisoner ” series, and others.
As a prisoner journalist and writer is devoted to helping prisoner writers get published and kicking open the doors that will allow prisoner writers access to the publishing world, tapping into the infinite potential that we all are a part of.
Steve Brooks
Steve Brooks is the Editor-in-chief of the San Quentin News. He is also an award-winning writer who has written for numerous publications and who works as a Correspondent for the Prison Journalism Project and contributor for Empowerment Avenue.
Steve enjoys being a voice for the voiceless and hopes to help end our current system of mass incarceration in exchange for a model designed to help rehabilitate people and send them home.”
Holly Davidson
I am 36 years old and just beginning my fourth year of incarceration. I have not been idle with my time. I have made it my mission to utilize my time to better myself and use the better me to reach out and help as many others as possible. Since arriving at Central California Women’s Facility two years ago, I have taken positive steps toward completing my self-appointed mission. I have completed many self-help groups, including mentorship, leadership, getting out of your own way, and Training 4 Trainers (T4T). I took these groups so that I could become a mentor and a facilitator.
Once I became an active facilitator, I began to create a curriculum of my own to introduce to my unit. I live in a rehabilitative programming unit (RPU), and to reside in this unit you must maintain a write-up-free lifestyle and participate in the in-house self-help groups. The groups I created, “Writefully Expressed” & “SketchIT 101,” are creative writing and beginner drawing. I believe that some people like myself will benefit from having a creative outlet.
While doing all this I have completed the Substance Abuse Program (SAP) provided to us, and am part of the Adult Music Program and Prison Arts Collective. I am on the waiting list for the Yard-Time Literacy Group and to work with R.Y.S.E. (youth outreach) and the Little Angel’s puppy program. I am the unit’s white Inmate Advisory Council (IAC). Also for this next year, I hope that I am able to make some difference in the lives of the incarcerated.
I write as much as I can and as often, as I aspire to someday become a published writer. I am happy to have recently become part of the Vanguard Incarcerated Press family. The VIP has given me a chance to be a voice without censorship; I am truly grateful for this. Over all my time has so far been productive, and I will continue to take steps towards ensuring that I am a better me when I walk out of here than when I walked in.
Angie Gordon
Plucky and unapologetic, sardonic, and frequently scorned by a variable rabble of her incarcerated peers, Angie D. Gordon is an outspoken voice in prison abolition, an accomplished scholar and researcher in Trans-Carceral Studies, and generally aggrieved over her lack of more mentionable accomplishments.
Incarcerated in the state of California, Ms. Gordon has received the full suite of in-prison college opportunities, which include a dribbling string of associate degrees from various community colleges, and a Bachelor’s in Communication Studies from California State University Sacramento. Focused primarily on research and academic scholarship, Ms. Gordon is currently engaged in the study of how the ideological orientations of correctional officers influence their interpretation and enforcement of the law.
She has been published in a meager smattering of incarcerated press sources, including the Mule Creek Post, Perspectives from the Cell Block: An Anthology of Prisoner Writings, and ” The Prison Journalism Project”. Presently, Ms. Gordon is in the review process for publication in Critical Criminology: An International Journal, as well as preparing to present the findings of an original study at the American Society of Criminology’s Eastern Conference, 2023.
Ms. Gordon is committed to elevating the voices of incarcerated folx across the country, and dedicated to the equitable integration of their voices within both national and localized discussions on the reform and/or abolition of the criminal processing system.
Stanley Howard
Stanley Howard was born on November 6, 1962, in Chicago, IL.
After dropping out of highschool during his sophomore year and work a few odd jobs, Stanley spent his teenage years partying and running the streets with friends on the city’s Southside.
He was arrested on Nov. 1, 1984, for the robbery of two off-duty Chicago cops and eventually charged with a host of unsolved crimes.
Stanley is one of approximately 180 known Black men tortured into signing false and coerced confessions by crooked cops working under the supervision of Cmdr. Jon Burge. Burge ran a torture ring from the early-1970s until he was fired in 1993.
Stanley has spent close to four decades in prison – sixteen on death row and is scheduled for release on Nov. 1, 2023.
He received a GED and earned Certificates for Paralegal/Legal Assistant, Commerial Custodian, Career Technology, Fundamentals of Construction, Practical Building Trades of Construction, and in the process of receiving an Associate in Applied Science of Construction.
Stanley considers himself to be a social justice advocate focusing primarily on prisoners’ rights, prison reform, criminal justice reform and to end the death penalty.
He’s the author of a must-read book called TORTURED BY BLUE:The Chicago Police Torture Story.
Jamel Walker
Jamel Walker is a member of Vanguard Incarcerated Press Advisory Board. As a youthful offender, he was sentenced to Life Without Parole. He is 58, and is currently serving his 37th year of incarceration.
During his years of incarceration, he has transformed himself into a social justice advocate, paralegal, writer, Certified Peer Literacy Mentor, and a member of Phi Theta Kappa honor society. As a social justice advocate and paralegal, he has successfully litigated a civil rights action against the CDCR effecting change in their discriminatory treatment of incarcerated citizens, and vindicated his and fellow incarcerated citizens’ right to privacy when telephonically communicating with their attorneys. Because of his litigation efforts, he has affected change in the policy of the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office in how they handle former client files, and has assisted fellow incarcerated citizens in successfully challenging their wrongful convictions and/or sentences.
As a Certified Peer Literacy Mentor, he has assisted fellow incarcerated citizens in learning to read, to earn their GED/HSD, and enroll in community college. He has earned undergraduate degrees in Sociology and, Social Behavioral Sciences. He is currently an undergraduate student at California State University – Sacramento majoring in Communication Studies.