The Latest
Keep up with Reforming Arts' latest news, thinking, and events. Have this delivered right to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter.
Events
Theatre Reentry Project Meeting
Join us every Tuesday at 10am
Virtual
Join us for arts, community, and fun each Tuesday. Themes and arts topics change regularly. Open to any person reentering their community after incarceration at a women’s prison. New participants should email us for information on how to join.
Theatre Reentry Project Meeting
Saturday, July 24, 2020 - 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
ArtsExchange - East Point, GA
Join us for arts, community, and fun each Tuesday. Themes and arts topics change regularly. Open to any person reentering their community after incarceration at a women’s prison. New participants should email us for information on how to join.
Theatre Reentry Project Micro Memoir Workshops
with Author Anna Schachner
Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 10am and Tuesday, July 27, 2021 at 10am
Virtual
Georgia author Anna Schachner leads two workshops on creative writing and micro memoir. A true hybrid, the micro memoir strives to combine the extreme abbreviation of poetry, the narrative tension of fiction, and the truth-telling of creative nonfiction. No prior experience necessary. Open to any person reentering their community after incarceration at a women’s prison. New participants should email us for information on how to join.
News & Thinking
Wende Ballew Featured on Nothing Ever Happens Podcast
On July 7, 2021, Reforming Arts Executive Director Wende Ballew was featured on the Nothing Ever Happens Podcast with Tina Pippin and Lucia Hulsether. The podcast explores a journey into radical pedagogical theory and praxis, connecting with leading voices in teaching and learning. What happens when Theater of the Oppressed meets the prison industrial…
Understanding how the prison system is different in Georgia
Fifty years ago many criminologists were questioning if prisons were a thing of the past because rates of incarceration where at a historic low and had been declining for many years. The average incarceration rate during the first part of the 20th century was one-tenth of one percent of the population. But as we know…
Reforming Arts Awarded a Georgia Humanities CARES Act Emergency Operating Grant
Today, Georgia Humanities announced $634,200 in CARES Act Emergency Operating Grants to 77 museums, libraries, historical societies, colleges and universities, and other cultural nonprofit organizations that offer humanities programming to Georgians. Click here for more details.
30 Under 30 Awards
Board President, Stephanie Iasiello, named among the “30 Under 30” Nonprofit Leaders in Atlanta by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network.
Reforming Arts Named EBON DOOLEY Social Justice Champion Award Winner
The Ebon Dooley Art & Justice Awards, named after the ArtsXchange’s founder, highlight artists and activists who are advancing access and justice for their communities and beyond. Click here to learn more about ArtsXchange
Atlanta Magazine Announces 2018 Women Making A Mark Honorees
Executive Director, Wende Ballew, named among the 2018 Women Making A Mark by Atlanta Magazine. “We are fortunate and extremely excited by this year’s group of honorees. Not only are these women leading some of Atlanta’s finest corporations, they serve as role models and mentors to all of us that strive to give back, contribute to…
Reforming Arts to Receive $15,000 Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $25 million in grants as part of the NEA’s first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $15,000 to Reforming Arts to support our theater-infused higher education program for incarcerated individuals in Georgia.…
Reflections on Kelly Gissendaner
On the morning of Friday January 23, 2015, I and Reforming Arts volunteer, Katherine Perry, walked into our poetry classroom at Lee Arrendale State Prison and were greeted by the words, “they are going to kill Kelly on February 10th.” Our students did not have time to say hello, they needed to know if we…
“911, Where is your Emergency?”
I have spent countless hours over the past eleven years asking that question. I work as a shift supervisor for a small emergency services agency in northwest Georgia that serves a community of about 80,000 people. Often people associate my job with a constant barrage of structure fires, armed robberies, six car pile ups with…
Perspective
There is nothing like a healthy dose of perspective. It is so easy for me to take for granted all of the privileges that make up my daily life. For example, I have endless choices of what to eat at restaurants or buy at the grocery store; the freedom to decide where I want to…
