Jorge Antonio Renaud, recently released from the Texas prison system, reads from recent works. 

Renaud's writing has appeared in Americas Review, The Texas Observer, The Threepenny Review, Revista Chicano-Riqueña, and The Other Side among other publications. 

He has received nine PEN Prison Writing Contest awards for his poetry, fiction, non-fiction and memoir writing. His important book, Behind the Walls: A Guide for Families and Friends of Texas Prison Inmates, was published by the University of North Texas Press. 

The Advocacy Committee of PEN Prison Writing Program has been active in his struggle to win parole. Free at last, Renaud is devoting himself to prison reform. 

Reception will follow the reading. "But the possibility for change is ever present. All we need to do is to believe, to truly believe that each man and woman is blessed with a kernel of redemption, and to then ask ourselves: do we nourish it, or do we let it wither and die." 

From Convicts and Communities, Jorge A. Renauld, 2007