Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer

Ever since he was asked to critique the poetry of a convicted murderer, he has lived in two worlds.

Richard Shelton was a young English professor in 1970 when a convict named Charles Schmid—a serial killer dubbed the “Pied Piper of Tucson” in national magazines—shared his brooding verse. But for Shelton, the novelty of meeting a death-row monster became a thirty-year commitment to helping prisoners express themselves. Shelton began organizing creative writing workshops behind bars, and …