Celebrating 10 years of Penned Up (2015 - 2025)
 

What is Penned Up 2025?

Penned Up is a co-curated literary festival that takes place in prison.

The festival started in HMP Lewes in 2015, it has run programmes in Downview and Erlestoke, with the latter becoming its base. The model is always a committee of prisoners working with the festival directors to put together a programme reflecting the interests and needs of its prison audience. 

We’ve hosted guests such as Kit de Waal, Nick Cave, and Raphael Rowe. Committee members (prisoners) have played on stage with Billy Bragg, interviewed Charley Boorman, and worked with Jimmie McGovern on his prison drama TIME. 

I started Penned Up because I felt people in prison were denied agency – art was done to them. Read this – don’t read that. Clap for this author who has been good enough to visit, whether you are interested or not you should be grateful.

Maybe that’s an extreme version, but the elements of dropping authors into a prison without much or any consultation with the potential audience, was/is common. I know I found myself being billed as one of those authors and having to deal with two groups of prisoners - one group who didn’t want to be there at all - simply because the prison wanted to say they had an author in that week. Box ticked. Penned Up needed to find a different model, one we are still refining/altering ten years later. Each festival has a committee made up of prisoners with a couple of staff, plus myself or my co director Mark Hewitt.  

What does co-curation mean for Penned Up?

How much can a group of prisoners really do? How can it be truly co-curation when power is not equally distributed? With no internet access, committee members are dependent on memory and word of mouth to suggest potential guests. From the beginning, we developed a model of working where the committee could: 

•  Introduce guests 
•  Write to potential guests 
•  Assess the best locations 
•  Spread the word 
•  Help with the admin/feedback 

Giving agency to prisoners is loaded with unseen problems. Will they be seen as ‘having stepped over the line’ by their peers? What will it be like for them to interview a guest in front of people on their wing?  Will they be empowered enough to make it worth it? 

As outsiders, we can try our hardest to give power to those living in the prison. We moved from a two-week programme to running events over a whole month, because the committee said this was better for them. It was a major change, but it was the right thing to do. 

The Penned Up committee

The committee are integral to the programming and this is where it becomes interesting – dividing tasks, assigning power. They write letters, they advertise. They don’t know as much about writers as me – it’s harder for them to face an audience that they live so closely with. It’s also important for staff. They also contribute and gain from that. Seeing people in a different light because they’re doing different things and doing them together.  Relationships and maintaining those relationships, even when there is not a funded project going is really important. You don’t want to be that person who rocks up at a prison only when they have a bit of funding and expect the prison to jump in line. 

“As a committee member, I was able to become heavily involved in most aspects of the festival, and from our first meeting I was made to feel like an equal. This has been particularly meaningful in the prison environment, as far too often we, as prisoners, are not heard and not included in any form of decision-making. 

As committee members, we were first encouraged to suggest possible guests for events, and then write letters inviting them to attend the festival. We were also consulted about decisions regarding how the festival should run and how we should advertise it prison-wide. As the festival approached, we then got involved in the logistical side of things. For example, I would travel around the prison putting up posters for upcoming events throughout the festival, collate names/produce tickets for events, and produce and send out feedback forms for audience members. I have also had the opportunity to become actively involved in the events themselves. This has included introducing guests such as musician Nick Cave (a huge hero of mine), opening a number of festivals by playing live with my band, and playing guitar with Billy Bragg on stage. 

These experiences, along with many other events held here at Erlestoke, have been unforgettable, and to be able to help create such amazing memories for myself and many others in such difficult and challenging circumstances, is something truly special. In the 15 years I’ve spent in the prison system, Penned Up is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before”. 

Michael, Erlestoke Penned Up committee member 2016-2024 

Co-curating is only real if you have changed something and felt the effects of that change, otherwise, you are merely pulling people along in your direction. They’re followers, not equals. Genuine co-curation is hard, but we have worked hard to make is as much a part of Penned Up as the programme it delivers. 

David Kendall - Penned Up 

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