Caesar Bond is our first prison project.
We have a collaborative writing project that we do in schools and universities.In involves groups designing a narrative together, and then each taking charge of different character’s actions as they work out the detailed steps of the plot. The writers keep control of their character right through until the book is published, which is normally five days after they start working.
When we started working in prisons, we took a slightly different approach. We’ve been working with groups of fathers, who obviously don’t see their kids much, so rather than making a character from scratch and seeing how that character fits into the story, the writers have been using their kids as the characters in the book. Better yet, the kids get an extra visitation day and come in during the project to illustrate the book. It’s really quite emotional.
We call this project “Caesar Bond” (as in, ‘seize the bond’), which is also the pen name we use for the books.
You can see the results of the first project here.