Aron Pines

The Miseducation of Icarus

A coming-of-age memoir about Pines’ journey into the world of legislation, a place where he would learn to successfully defend himself at trial after being incarcerated and charged with murder as a teenager. The memoir succinctly captures his transformative journey from a juvenile defendant to a pro-se litigant in the bowels of the American judicial system, serving as a necessary and urgent narrative in this era. Since his release, Pines has worked with various prison reform groups to minimize the damaging impacts of mass incarceration as a former Pen America Fellow, Right of Return Fellow, and a prison reform advocate.

On barriers found in the arts and literary fields:

“I didn’t know where to find publication opportunities or grants. Outside of me researching fellowships, in regards to creativity and prison reform, the finer details about how to get my writing published? I know there are avenues out there. But up until this point, this has been a learning process for me. Before getting this fellowship, I was just writing. Writing was something I did on my own. I was going to school and jobs that I worked were something totally different than what I wanted to do as a writer. I know that so much of establishing yourself in the literary or creative world is about connecting with greater communities of artists and creative spirits. So, I was just like pushing buttons and seeing what landed. But once I got on board with the fellowship, it expanded and opened me up to a wider range of audiences and creative individuals to get connected with. And I would have never had the opportunity to do that before. That has made it a lot easier for me to do what I ultimately want to do. It opened me up to a world that I was, up until that point, completely locked out from. A world that I knew existed—but I didn’t know how I was going to break into this thing.”