Other Writing
Journalism, essays, book chapters, poetry, and plays by Jean Trounstine
Sample Journalism & Essays
Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism
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BINJ
Beacon Hill’s Blindest Spot: Can The Governor’s Council Reverse A Century Of Oversight?
April 14, 2026
Watch the video → -
BINJ
Prison Brought Us Together, But Friendship Survives
December 24, 2025 -
BINJ
Governing in Darkness — Three-Part Series on the Massachusetts Governor’s Council
2024–2025 -
BINJ
More Dysfunction than Diversity
June 25, 2019
Muck Rack
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Muck Rack
View all 125+ articles by Jean Trounstine
Complete journalism archive — Boston Globe, CommonWealth, BINJ, Truthout, and more
The Boston Globe
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Globe
You Don’t Need Kids to Have a Stake in the Future
August 12, 2024 -
Globe
Shakespeare Goes Behind Prison Bars
July 15, 2007 -
Globe
Prison Drama
Boston Globe Magazine
1993
Dig Boston
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Dig Boston
Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison
September 22, 2022 -
Dig Boston
Why Are Half the Mass Correction Officers Refusing the COVID Vaccine?
February 14, 2021 -
Dig Boston
COVID Surges In Mass Prisons, Still No Plan to Decarcerate
December 4, 2020 -
Dig Boston
Revocation Nation
September 2020 -
Dig Boston
The Dysfunctional Mass Parole Board’s Coronavirus Crisis
April 21, 2020 -
Dig Boston
Changing Perception, Changing the Law
March 3, 2020
Reprinted in Truthout and Criminal Legal News -
Dig Boston
The Fight for Life in Massachusetts
May 23, 2019
CommonWealth Magazine
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CommonWealth
Legislative Hearings Have Become Mostly Theater
October 24, 2019
Boston Magazine
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Boston Mag
Locked Up With Nowhere to Go
July 2013 -
Boston Mag
Patrick’s Folly
August 2011 -
Boston Mag
Boston Daily Blog Posts, 2012–2019
View all posts →
Truthout
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Truthout
Articles for Truthout, 2013–2019
View all articles →
Huffington Post
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HuffPost
Kids Can Change: Stop Sending Juveniles to Adult Prisons and Jails
February 8, 2016
Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices
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Solstice
Lost and Found
March 6, 2020 -
Solstice
A Gift from Prison
Fall/Winter 2012 -
Solstice
Meeting Karter
Honorable Mention, Solstice Lit Mag Contest
Women’s Review of Books
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WRB
Changing Women’s Lives Through Literature
May–June 2015 -
WRB
Money, Justice, and Bail
2014 -
WRB
Stories from the Big House
Fall 2006 -
WRB
Ms. Captivity
March/April 2008
Rag Blog
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Rag Blog
Blog Posts, 2012–2016
View all posts →
Other Publications
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Boston Herald
Can We Still Hate the Yankees?
Also published in Sentinel & Enterprise
September 2025 -
Writer’s Digest
Finding Freedom in Fiction
2024 -
Commonwealth Beacon
Why We Need More Parole Board Members
2024 -
Women Writers
Writing Outside the Lines
2024 -
HorizonMass
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Motherlove
March 27, 2024 -
Working Woman
The Escape Artist
March 2001 -
Southwest Review
Throw Away the Key
2000 -
So To Speak
Mothers and Daughters Doing Time
1999 -
Working Class Writers
No Fluff
1999 -
Voices West
Skating on Stone
Spring 1997 -
AEPL Journal
Sacred Spaces
December 1996 -
MetroWest Daily
Three Strikes and You’re Out
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