North Park Writing Center Director Receives Grant to Assist Incarcerated Writers

Melissa Pavlik, director of North Park University's Writing Center, will use a $5,000 Illinois Humanities grant to support incarcerated writing students who are graduates or students of the North Park Theological Seminary's Master of Arts in Christian Ministry with Restorative Arts program.

"This funding is vital for our project because it allows us to amplify our writing group members' voices in a manner accessible to outside family, community members, and the general public," Pavlik said.

Since 2023, Pavlik has led the weekly writing group called WRIT112 at Stateville Correctional Center (whose population has temporarily relocatedto Illinois River Correctional Center). Many of the group members are also North Park writing tutors.

Pavlik plans to spend the grant on producing the group's anthology of writing and visual art, Writing from Both Sides of the Moon, which North Park's Office of Civic Engagement will display at a Catalyst event in April 2025 alongside Feather Bricks, a magazine Pavlik produces.

In September 2024, Illinois Humanities awarded $147,000 to 13 groups and six individuals, including Pavlik, to fund visionary and innovative projects that use the humanities as a tool to examine mass incarceration and collectively shape a more just future. Read more here.