Chandra Bozelko

Connecticut

Chandra Bozelko was the first incarcerated person to have a regular byline in a mainstream newspaper. Her column, “Prison Diaries,” has become a blog that has been honored by the Webby Awards twice and won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists annual contest in 2016. She also published a book of poetry entitled “Up The River: An Anthology” while she was incarcerated.  Chandra is a 2017 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Criminal Justice Reporting Fellow, and a 2017 Journalism and Women Symposium Emerging Journalism Fellow. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Elle, Forbes and many other outlets.

Aside from her own writing, Chandra also works for The Petey Greene Program, a nonprofit that trains volunteers to enter correctional facilities and tutor incarcerated students as they prepare for academic milestones like passing the GED or taking college classes.  She serves as a mentor-editor for The Oped Project, a social venture founded to increase the range of voices and quality of ideas we hear in the world.