Changing Lives through Literature depends on the belief that modern literature is the best tool our society has to explore human identity. Through their tireless work in the Massachusetts prison system, co-editors Robert Waxler and Jean Trounstine discovered that a study of modern literature enhances readers’ verbal skills through an engagement with language, opens experience to a multitude of perspectives, enriches our sense of human diversity, and makes us self-reflective and thoughtful.

The stories included in this valuable anthology are written by notable contemporary raconteurs such as T. Coraghessan Boyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison, and Raymond Carver, and have been successful in exciting conversation among the Changing Lives through Literature groups.

This book will arouse interest in anyone involved in, or moved by, the Changing Lives through Literature program. It is truly a valuable gift for alternative learners: criminal offenders in or out of prison, displaced workers, and any reader failed by the traditional educational system.