Tuesdays in Jail: What I Learned Teaching Journaling to Inmates

In 2011, novelist Tina Welling began teaching journaling workshops for the mostly male inmates at the Teton County Jail in Jackson, Wyoming. What began as a little-understood impulse on her part became a meaningful journey with surprising results.

Welling was floored by how much she had in common with the incarcerated: “It’s just that they had been arrested and I had not.” They talked and wrote about self-esteem, anger, forgiveness, compassion, personal power, codependency. She gave the men...