"They told you, 'don't feed the monkeys'..." The setting: maximum security prison. A dozen college students sat down face to face with two dozen lifers as part of a unique creative writing experiment deep inside the walls.... more » In a a sparse room in the bowels of the prison, students and prisoners talked intimately for 14 weeks, ostensibly, to learn to write; but the lessons were much deeper. The prisoners discovered that people actually care about them, especially when they learn to open up, to trust, and to express themselves honestly--in ways that are contrary to everything they have learned about surviving in prison. And the college students, apprehensive--even hateful--at first, were amazed to find their classmates were not the calculating, unfeeling monsters depicted in the media, as they helped these men to reflect, to write, and to share deeply personal issues, deeply-guarded emotions, and lifelong insecurities. Both groups found new hope and humanity in a place where they had expected neither.« less