Our Collaborators ✵

Alex Tretbar is the author of the chapbook Kansas City Gothic (Broken Sleep, 2025). As a Writers for Readers Fellow with the Kansas City Public Library, he teaches free writing classes to the community. Recent poems and essays have appeared in Kenyon Review, Narrative, and The Threepenny Review. He was incarcerated in the state of Oregon from 2017 to 2022.

Empowerment Avenue's mission is to normalize the inclusion of incarcerated writers and artists in mainstream venues by bridging the gap between them and harnessing this creative proximity as a path to de-carceration and public safety.

Open Hearts Open Minds (OHOM) is a nonprofit organization that engages incarcerated Oregonians' creativity through various art mediums: writing, music, film and theater. We lean into the transformative power of the arts to heal our lives and our communities. To learn more, visit www.openheartsopenminds.org.