How a Local Nonprofit is Bringing Books to Prisons in New York

Local bookstores are bringing books to prisons throughout New York State. The Prison Books Project, in partnership with local bookstores throughout Ulster and Dutchess counties, is a nonprofit that was established in 2020 with the purpose of sending books to people incarcerated throughout New York State free of cost. Based in Binnacle Books in Beacon, the project has since partnered with a host of other local bookstores to send the hundreds of books requests that have come to fill their PO Box every month. Radio Catskill’s Julia Kim had the chance to speak with co-founder Annmarie Nye and current co-director Michal Mart on what inspired the Prison Books Project, the reach the nonprofit has been able to have and what role bookstores and books more broadly play in challenging the carceral system.