Margo Perin grew up in numerous cities all over the United States and in at least five different countries. But her parents weren’t military or international business people.

Perin’s father was trying to escape a 20-year prison sentence and took his family with him. Having to change her name and physically change her identity, she said she grew up not knowing who she was and her only way to cope was to write.

After having taught writing courses at the University of San Francisco and University of California Berkeley, Perin currently teaches writing to inmates at San Quentin State Prison through her organization Write and Rise.

“I’m providing an environment for people to find their writing voices in the jail and prison environment,” Perin said.

She is also co-founder of And Now What, an organization comprised of four groups, Write and Rise, The Realization of a Dream (The R.O.A.D.), The Sacred Space and Determined Young Minds Equals Success (D.Y.M.E.S.). These various groups come together to help the families and individuals affected by incarceration.

On March 6, And Now What was presented at SF State’s Poetry Center located on the fifth floor of the Humanities building. Speaking with vivid candor and emotion, the eight poets and writers walked up to the podium to tell their personal stories of struggle and survival.

“More was I to be punished, for being uncontrollable,” Perin said, as she read a piece from her memoir, Criminal Intent. “But mostly for looking Jewish. He was ashamed; I can only assume…for why would he force me to let a doctor change my face so that no one would discover the truth of his race.”

Kenneth Johnson is a former inmate and now works out of San Quentin State Prison, San Francisco County Jail for Women and San Bruno County Jail with his organization The Sacred Space.

“What we do is conduct healing circles,” Johnson said. “It’s my belief, after being incarcerated; if you’re able to just hold a space for someone and really see who they are, you can help them move through their story.”

He said he believes that a human being’s basic nature is happiness and he uses the dialogue opened in the circle to help the inmates see past the situations that brought them to prison.

“I try to guide them to that place of happiness as gently and easily as I possibly can…sometimes you got to smack them to that place,” he said with a chuckle.

Xochitl Fierro, founder of The R.O.A.D., began getting involved in working with inmates after her experience with her ex-husband, who was incarcerated.

“The R.O.A.D. basically provides non-profit organizations with executive coaching.” Fierro said. “In addition, I sponsor a class inside of San Quentin State prison, which is a job-readiness, life skills class which is peer led, so I train the inmates who are in the class to be peer facilitators and they facilitate the class.”

Perin’s book, Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail, features stories written by incarcerated men and women from San Francicso County Jail. She said that the work she, Johnson and Fierro do is a labor of love, and with a huge prison population and a rising prison industry fewer of these types of programs are being offered in prisons.

“[We] have to find our own funding to be able to do the work that we love,” she said. “In spite of that, we’re all very passionate about what we’re doing because we all believe in how powerful it is to work towards freedom in all of our lives.”