We got a grant! Help us make it go further
Announcing "Still True: Connecting Incarcerated Citizens to Local Heritage" — Supported by 4Culture!
We are thrilled to share some incredible news: Hinton Publishing, in partnership with our friends at Estelita’s Library, has been awarded a $15,000 4Culture Heritage Grant!
This generous funding will launch the initial phase of our new collaborative literary initiative, "Still True: Connecting Incarcerated Citizens to Local Heritage."
Bridging the Carceral Gap Through Literature
For those separated from their neighborhoods by incarceration, the risk of cultural erasure is devastatingly high. Incarcerated individuals—disproportionately Black and Brown residents from areas like the Central District and South Seattle—frequently face an "information famine," cut off from the contemporary history and evolution of the places they call home.
This project aims to change that by using literature as a tool for cultural continuity, community reconciliation, and re-entry. Centered around Reagan Jackson’s powerful essay collection, Still True: The Evolution of an Unexpected Journalist, we are building a living dialogue that spans prison walls. Still True chronicles a decade of Seattle's history through a Black feminist lens, exploring everything from the gentrification of the Southend to the local Black Lives Matter movement and the vibrant artists and activists who define our city.
The 4Culture Heritage Grant will directly support a unique, dual-forum "distanced book club" model over the next 12–18 months, providing physical books to incarcerated individuals, whose responses to the book will lead the in-person discussions of Still True at Estelita’s Library. The conversations between the in-person book club and the responses from those who are incarcerated will be collected into a newsletter, which will be sent for free to the book club members inside prison and available for free online to outside members of the book club.
Double Our Impact: Help Us Send More Books to Incarcerated Neighbors
While our grant funding kicks off this vital infrastructure, the need is immense. We want to expand our reach and put even more books directly into the hands of our incarcerated community members—and we need your help to do it.
If you believe that heritage belongs to everyone, no matter how society or the justice system attempts to isolate them, please consider making a tax-deductible donation.
Donate $25.21: Sends exactly one copy of Still True directly to an incarcerated individual.
How to Give: Visit our Hinton Publishing Donation Page. In the payment notes, please write "still true books to" so we can route your gift directly to the prison literacy program.
Bringing The Power of the River to Local High Schools
Our mission to share vital local narratives doesn't stop at the prison walls. We recently published The Power of the River, a moving new memoir by Dr. Ed Taylor, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs at the University of Washington and former Gonzaga basketball player. The book is a profound examination of Black identity, public community, loss, and the healing metaphor of a river.
We have been deeply moved by every one of Ed's book talks, and we are incredibly grateful to his friends, colleagues, and community members who have packed his events. But as we listen to Ed share his journey of overcoming a system designed to make him a cog in the machine, we know one thing for certain: Ed’s stories and message are most urgently needed by young people.
We want to make inviting Ed Taylor into local classrooms completely irresistible for high schools and teachers. We want students who need his words the most to have the opportunity to read his text and look him in the eye as he speaks.
Help us create a High School Speaker & Book Package
We want to offer a special package to local high schools: When a school books Ed Taylor to speak to their students, Hinton Publishing wants to provide free copies of The Power of the River for the classroom.
To fund this initiative and get books into local classrooms, we are opening up a second donation pipeline:
Donate $24.43: Funds one free copy of The Power of the River to be gifted to a local high school student during Ed's school visits.
How to Give: Head to our Hinton Publishing Donation Page. In the payment notes, please write "Power of the River books to" so we can allocate your funds to our youth classroom outreach.
Why Not Both?
If you think the gift of black literary voices is equally important to share with those who are incarcerated as it is to share with students, you can donate to both projects!
How to Give: Head to our Hinton Publishing Donation Page. In the payment notes, just write "books to." And we will evenly split your donation between our two literary outreach projects.
What’s Next?
Led by our project team—Maggie Block, Marcus Harrison Green, and author Reagan E.J. Jackson—we are currently diving into Phase 1 of the 4Culture project. Over the coming months, we will be rolling out updates on how you can join the in-person book club at Estelita’s Library.
Simultaneously, we will be tracking our community donations for the High School Speaker & Book Package. Once we evaluate our donation pool and determine exactly how many free copies of The Power of the River we can supply, we will begin actively reaching out to local teachers and librarians to bring Ed Taylor's powerful message straight to their classrooms.
Keep an eye on our space and social media channels to see how you can get involved!