Premonitions As More Than A ‘Side Effect Of Bad Clams’

August 10th, 2016

Best-selling novelist Joshilyn Jackson is not afraid to describe herself as “redemption-obsessed,” nor is she afraid to describe herself as a pragmatist who does not take premonitions seriously.

“When I have feelings about things or dreams or intuitions, I attribute them to bad clams,” Jackson explains.

That is, until she read a call for volunteers to help serve in prison.

In this edition of “Writer to Reader,” Jackson talks about what drove her to follow up on the volunteer opportunity and the results of her actions.

“I’ve never been to prison, but I do have personal connections; there are people I love very much who have,” she says.

Upon arrival at the meeting to provide more information on the volunteer opportunity, Jackson quickly realized it was not for her.

“What this group was doing is really important; they’re driving the children of inmates to see their mothers,” she says. “[But] I am the world’s worst driver. I am physically terrified of cars.”

Despite this being a nonstarter and regretting acting on her feelings that she needed to attend, the meeting was not entirely a loss. While Jackson was there, she met a woman who ran a different organization called Reforming Arts, which works to bring a liberal arts education to women in Georgia prisons.

While Jackson listened for the rest of the meeting, she could not help thinking about her feelings toward narrative power and how that relates prison.

“We change ourselves by changing our stories,” she says. After she combined that with her belief that education is the best way to prevent recidivism, Jackson turned to the woman from Reforming Arts and said, “I don’t drive; I want to work with you.”