Other Writing
Journalism, essays, book chapters, poetry, and plays by Jean Trounstine
Sample Journalism & Essays
Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism
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Beacon Hill’s Blindest Spot: Can The Governor’s Council Reverse A Century Of Oversight?
April 14, 2026 -
Prison Brought Us Together, But Friendship Survives
December 24, 2025 -
Governing in Darkness — Three-Part Series on the Massachusetts Governor’s Council
2024–2025 -
More Dysfunction than Diversity
June 25, 2019
Muck Rack
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View all 125+ articles by Jean Trounstine
Complete journalism archive — Boston Globe, CommonWealth, BINJ, Truthout, and more
Dig Boston
- Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison
September 22, 2022 - Why Are Half the Mass Correction Officers Refusing the COVID Vaccine?
February 14, 2021 - COVID Surges In Mass Prisons, Still No Plan to Decarcerate
December 4, 2020 - Revocation Nation
September 2020 - The Dysfunctional Mass Parole Board’s Coronavirus Crisis
April 21, 2020 - Changing Perception, Changing the Law
March 3, 2020
Reprinted in Truthout and Criminal Legal News - The Fight for Life in Massachusetts
May 23, 2019
CommonWealth Magazine
- Legislative Hearings Have Become Mostly Theater
October 24, 2019
Boston Magazine
- Locked Up With Nowhere to Go
July 2013 - Patrick’s Folly
August 2011 - Boston Daily Blog Posts, 2012–2019
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Truthout
- Articles for Truthout, 2013–2019
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Huffington Post
- Kids Can Change: Stop Sending Juveniles to Adult Prisons and Jails
February 8, 2016
Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices
- Lost and Found
March 6, 2020 - A Gift from Prison
Fall/Winter 2012 - Meeting Karter
Honorable Mention, Solstice Lit Mag Contest
Women’s Review of Books
- Changing Women’s Lives Through Literature
May–June 2015 - Money, Justice, and Bail
2014 - Stories from the Big House
Fall 2006 - Ms. Captivity
March/April 2008
Rag Blog
- Blog Posts, 2012–2016
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Other Publications
- The Escape Artist
Working Woman Magazine
March 2001 - Throw Away the Key
Southwest Review
2000 - Mothers and Daughters Doing Time
So To Speak
1999 - No Fluff
Working Class Writers Write about Work
1999 - Skating on Stone
Voices West
Spring 1997 - Sacred Spaces
The Association of Expanded Perspectives in Learning Journal
December 1996 - Prison Drama
Boston Globe Magazine
1993 - Three Strikes and You’re Out
Metrowest Daily News
January 1, 2012
Book Chapters & Academic Writing
- “Rose” — a chapter from Shakespeare Behind Bars
Republished in Essays on Teaching, Dover Thrift Editions
2013 - Booking it Beyond the Big House
Interrupted Life, University of California Press
January 2010 - Reconsidering Sacred Spaces
Performing New Lives: Reflections on Prison Theatre in the United States, Jessica Kingsley Press
2010
Watch: Performing New Lives on YouTube → - The Memory We Call Home
The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Travelers’ Tales
2008 - Beyond Prison Education
PMLA
Summer 2008
An educator’s response → - Texts as Teachers: Shakespeare Behind Bars and Changing Lives Through Literature
Arts and Societal Learning, Josie Bass
2007 - Eight Things I Learned in the Belly of the Whale
Representative American Speeches 2005–6, HW Wilson Co.
2006 - Family Drama
Topic Magazine
Fall 2004 - Brutal Beauty: The Poetry of Pam Bernard
MainStreet Rag
Spring 2003 - The Power of Words or Light in the Darkness
Prison Writings, ed. Danine Farquharson - The Forgotten Minority
Human Rights Abuses Against Women, Rutgers University Press
2001 - Throw the Book at Them
The Book Group Book, Chicago Review Press
1995, 2000
Poetry & Plays
- The Iraq Monologues
Performed at Middlesex Community College
2007 - Getting Well
OncoLink Reading Room
2003 - Making Chicken Soup
OncoLink Reading Room
2003 - In the Biopsy Room
OncoLink Reading Room
2003 - Baseball
The Mid America Poetry Review
2002 - My Mother’s Cancer
Out of Line
2002 - Remembering Chemotherapy
Poetry Motel
2001 - Winter in Texas
RedneckReview.com
Fall 2001
Listen to Jean read this poem → - The Boost
Out of Line
Fall 2001 - Breast Surgeon I & II
Phoebe: A Feminist Journal
Fall 2001 - In the Mirror · At Synagogue · The Language of Cancer
Red River Review
May 2001 - After Chemotherapy
Sojourner
March 2001