Tag Archives: writing intentions

What I Learned from Teaching Writing in a Prison

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For three years, I took a roundtrip bus ride—one hour each way—to an all-men’s prison to teach fiction writing and screenwriting. The process to get clearance from the Oregon Department of Justice was long and sometimes arduous. But my desire to do this work in this particular environment was something that had been tapping me on the shoulder for years. It felt like a calling.

My reason: As a writer and educator, I’ve always had a soft spot for marginalized voices, those with stories to tell—stories the world needs to hear—but who are often dismissed, disregarded, even silenced. And my keen intuition had told me for a long time that a wealth of creativity and brilliance lives behind prison walls. The Adults in Custody I met and worked with proved that, and a whole lot more.

Before retiring, I taught thousands of college students over the years as an adjunct writing professor. Since then, I’ve been working with people who write and want to write in online and in-person workshops. I often hear common refrains: “I want to write but…” They’re too busy. They believe they’re not talented enough. They’re not ready yet. They want to figure out the entire story before they can start.

On the inside, I saw none of that. Men with no prior experience, no perfect conditions, and no excuses. Just a willingness to try.

It’s easy to assume that the incarcerated have all the time in the world, but they don’t. Many have jobs on the inside. Many are in other programs, working to better themselves. Their days are full.

And their conditions are less than optimal for creativity. They’re told where to be and when, and with virtually zero chance of finding a quiet space. Always in close proximity to other humans, how can they gather their thoughts, tune in, and get words on the page?

One of the reasons the AICs I worked with were so successful was their willingness to be vulnerable. There’s something about prison life that strips away the facade. There’s no reason—and no room—for pretending.

Many of them had never written a story before. Yet they did it. They would pass me their handwritten pages, which I took home, typed up and made copies of to take back to class for workshop. They accepted the guidelines we discussed and sat quietly while the other writers in the group critiqued their work, always in the spirit of helping.

Many were moved to tears in class. Because they were finally expressing themselves. Because they learned they could do something they never dreamed they could do. Because they were touched by each other’s stories.

Many had never read their work aloud in front of others. Not only did they read in class in front of their peers, they also took part in public readings, sharing their stories with a supportive audience of people from the outside.

Standing alone at a mic—also a first for most—wasn’t easy for them. But they did it anyway. And inside a setting rarely kind to emotional risk, no less. Sometimes courage looks like trembling voices giving life to stories that have never existed before.

The community that grew and the mutual support I saw between them took my breath away. They showed up for themselves and each other. They listened, encouraged, built each other up. If someone started to get cold feet about reading to the public audience, others offered to read for them, or turn pages for them, anything to usher each other across the threshold from would-be writer to writer and public speaker.

I saw a certain kind of preciousness—even innocence—in those men. In some cases, it came from a lack of development due to circumstances beyond their control at an early point in their lives. In others, it was because they had enjoyed a kind of success on the outside and for reasons only they know, made choices that led them to the inside. And still in others, it was because they had been incarcerated unjustly.

Every week, they showed up with humility and gratitude. So. Much. Gratitude. Simply because I showed up. Simply because I cared. They told me how much they appreciated that I treated them like humans. Some told me that our time together had changed their lives, in different and particular ways. One even told me that his wife and son sent their thanks to me because through writing, he was becoming the man they needed.

But as I always told them, they were the ones doing the work. They were the ones taking the chances. And I received just as much—if not more—from them as they did from me.

When I first started my three-year stretch working with those men on the inside, I was at a place in life where I questioned my reason for being. It was shortly after the pandemic, and like many, the whole experience had taken me to a pretty dark place.

What did I have to offer? What was the point of my existence?

What they did for me changed my life and my direction. Their commitment and courage, their hunger for expression, re-lit my own sense of purpose. Teaching them wasn’t charity or service. It was an exchange. I walked out every Thursday more alive than when I walked in, always acutely aware that I could walk out.. No matter my mood, no matter the struggles I faced on the outside, when I stepped through the two chainlink doors and heard them clang behind me in succession, when I scanned my badge and walked down the main hall to the chapel where we met, all that disappeared.

In class, we laughed. We cried. And the lack of pretense was astounding. I felt welcome. I felt safe. I felt appreciated. Something I hadn’t felt on the outside in a long time. It brought me back to myself. And it reminded me how important my own writing is to me.

Writing doesn’t wait for the perfect conditions. It asks only for presence, honesty, and the willingness to take risks.

If those men in that prison can face the blank page and share their stories, what excuse do the rest of us really have?

Writing and telling stories is less about skill and more about courage. The courage to show up. The courage to be vulnerable. To make mistakes and learn from them. And to know that time spent putting words on the page is never wasted. No matter how many versions of a piece need to be written.

So while I taught fiction writing and screenwriting, the men at the prison taught me purpose and belonging.

That will stay with me for the rest of my days. I will never forget them. I will always be immensely grateful for them. And some day, I’ll write about them.

The Chrysanthemum: Shadows of Grief, a Bridge Between Life and Death

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Layer upon layer, the Chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum indicum) opens in a spiral of complexity. A flower of contradictions, it carries with it stories of both joy and sorrow, friendship and mourning. Across cultures and centuries, its meaning has shifted—sometimes a beacon of life, sometimes a token of death.

Modern Symbolism
Today, in much of the Western world, the chrysanthemum often signals grief. A flower for funerals, remembrance, and the bittersweet weight of love after loss.

Medicine and Healing
Yet beyond its symbolism, the chrysanthemum has a long medicinal history. Teas and tinctures made from its petals have been used for colds, fevers, blood pressure, and digestion. But caution is key: this flower can irritate the skin or interact with other herbs and medicines. Like so many plants of myth and medicine, it carries both remedy and risk.

Stories of Folklore
Across traditions, the chrysanthemum blooms with layered meanings:

  • In East Asia, it represents joy, longevity, and friendship.
  • In Europe, it is bound to death and mourning.
  • In Greece, it was said to protect against evil spirits.
  • In myth, it serves as a bridge between life and death.

A Final Thought
The chrysanthemum is no simple bloom. It is a spell within petals. Joy hidden in grief, medicine laced with poison, a dim light against shadows, and a bridge across the veil. To sit with this flower is to be reminded that life and death are never far apart, that beauty wears both a crown and a shroud. Say its name, and you call up both endings and beginnings.

Learn more about my upcoming novel, Miranda’s Garden, where this layered and luminous flower makes its appearance.

The Alchemy of Estrangement: How being estranged from my family of origin informs my fiction

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First things first: I’m not looking for condolences, “I’m sorrys,” or advice about forgiveness. I’ve done all that. If you can’t resist, if unsolicited advice is your currency, know this: I keep boundaries like talismans. Cross them and the door closes.

Boundaries are what led to the estrangement. It didn’t happen all at once, but person by person. And while I thoroughly grieved each loss, I’ve made peace with them all.

My dad: We’ve been estranged since my youngest son was two. He’s now 35. When I tried to talk about my childhood, my dad shut me down: “You can write to me about what your kids are doing or about the house [my then husband and I were building a custom house], fine. But if it’s about any of this other stuff, don’t bother me.” He also told me he had “a new family now.” I took him at his word and wrote one last letter saying the door would always be open if he ever wanted an honest conversation. Thirty-three years later, it’s still open.

My mom: Our falling out was slower, with repeated “come back” attempts, always on her terms, always at my expense. Her well-disguised narcissism unraveled when I could no longer pretend. The final break came in 2017.

My younger brother: Our estrangement fell between the two. Ask him why, and he’ll tell you it’s because I’m crazy. That’s all.

So, why am I sharing this?

First, because I’m often asked when I do public readings: “Is this autobiographical?” (A bad question, in my opinion. I’ll say more about this in a future post.)

If I wanted to write my autobiography or memoir, that’s what I’d be doing. Writing fiction is a choice I’ve made for particular reasons. In short: fiction is a superior form of writing, in my opinion. (More on that, too, in a future post).

Another reason I’m airing my dysfunctional family estrangement is because:

  • being abandoned by them taught me resilience. It shaped me into a tenacious, self-contained, resourceful human who isn’t afraid of doing life alone. That has been pure gold.
  • it’s taught me that “Love conquers all” is only an adage. In my experience, shame and fear often outweigh love. (That doesn’t make me jaded. It makes me a realist.)
  • maybe most importantly, this is the soil where my fiction grows.

These experiences—loss, resilience, the complicated messiness of dysfunctional family dynamics—are the threads I weave into my fiction. Writing is where I transform the raw emotional material of my life into story, where pain becomes meaning, and where characters walk paths I recognize.

So, when people ask me, “Is this autobiographical?” about my work, the answer is always “no.” I don’t write about myself. I don’t need to anymore. Because I have the perspective… The distance needed to make meaning of human dramas and the human condition on a wider scale, to make my stories universal.

I let my characters have their own struggles, I walk beside them the way a parent does a child, and I serve as a guide on their path to meaning making about the human dramas readers identify with, which leads to recognition, validation, and connection.

And in the end, it leads to healing.

Hi, I’m Johnnie Mazzocco—Word Witch, Story Alchemist, Sage. I’m here to heal the world through stories, whether the ones I write and tell or the ones I help others write and tell.

Have you worked with a real word witch before? It’s time.

More to come about my family and how it has informed my fiction…

The Witchy Power of Story: Every story is a spell, and every reader is willingly enchanted

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Fictional stories are portals. They draw readers across a threshold into other worlds, where characters lead them through human dramas and deliver far more than escapism.

In many ways, stories are magical incantations. An alchemy of the writer’s words and the reader’s lived experience. Jonathan Gottschall, in The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, calls this the “weird and witchy power” of story.

The Witchy Power of Story

We are so immersed in stories that we forget how strange it is that mere words can alter our thoughts, emotions, even our bodies. Gottschall’s phrase—“weird and witchy power”—is an apt metaphor for the enchantment and danger of story: it seduces, reshapes, and ensnares.

Writers, in this sense, cast spells. They shift readers’ awareness and lived experience. Not with malice, but with magic. In my view, this spell is often medicinal, a way stories help us heal what life wounds.

The Irresistible Pull

Gottschall notes that “human minds yield helplessly to the suction of story” (p. 3). We can try to resist, but narrative captures our attention whether it arrives as gossip, a novel, or a binge-worthy show. Stories are alternate worlds we slip into, often without conscious choice.

I believe readers sense, maybe even unconsciously, that stories will soothe them, mending their minds, hearts, and souls.

Suspension of Disbelief

English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge coined the term “willing suspension of disbelief,” describing the tacit agreement between reader and writer. But Gottschall reminds us that will hardly enters into it.

Stories override our defenses. A simple phrase like “once upon a time”opens the door, and suddenly we are inside.

Storytelling as Spellcasting

Gottschall likens the storyteller to a sorcerer casting an incantation. If the spell is strong, resistance is nearly impossible; the only escape is to close the book.

This elevates storytelling from craft to conjuring. Writers wield a powerful wand, entering the reader’s mind and imagination, shaping thoughts and even bodily responses.

Readers as Co-Creators

Reading may appear passive, but the brain is anything but idle. Language centers fire, sensorimotor regions light up as we vicariously experience actions, and the default mode network engages to simulate mental states and environments.

The writer provides the framework. The reader’s imagination supplies the color, texture, and emotion. Stories “work” because they are co-creations between teller and audience.

The Subtle Power of the Writer

The writer guides but cannot fully control what the reader imagines. The paradox of story—that witchy magic—is this: enough precision to bind the reader’s mind and imagination, enough openness to let them weave themselves into it.

A Closing Spell

If stories are spells, then writers are modern-day witches (Alan Moore called them shamans). With words, they seize attention and alter consciousness.

Recognizing this power makes us more intentional about the stories we create—and more reverent of their influence. Storytelling may feel “fun” at times, but it is also sacred work: the forging of unseen, ethereal connections between humans who may never meet.

No, My Novel is Not My Diary: Stop asking me if my fiction Is autobiography

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There’s one question that makes me want to roll my eyes so hard they disappear into the back of my skull and give you a great big fat face palm:

“So… is this autobiographical?”

Let me rant for a minute.

First, it’s invasive. You’re not asking about the story, you’re asking about me. You’re trying to sniff out where my scars are, which characters are my family in disguise, and whether I secretly had an affair with the villain. And honestly? That’s none of your damn business.

Second, it’s ignorant. Fiction is not autobiography. If you want autobiography, that’s called memoir. Different shelf. Different project. Different set of artistic responsibilities. If I wanted to do that, that’s what I’d be doing. I’m interested in making meaning of human dramas, not navel gazing (does the world really need yet another Eat, Pray, Love?).

Third, it’s naive. Because even when fiction grows from the compost heap of a writer’s lived experience (and it always does), that doesn’t mean the story on the page is “about me.” It means I’ve alchemized the raw material into art.

Here’s what differentiates fiction from autobiography (and why it matters):

Fiction is transformation. 

The writer takes life—their own, other people’s, the collective human mess—and distills it, reshapes it, stretches it until it becomes something larger than a single lived experience. Memoir looks inward; fiction radiates outward.

Fiction is universal. 

In memoir, the writer is the protagonist. In fiction, characters are vessels—archetypes, shadows, mirrors—crafted to invite the reader into the meaning-making.

Fiction is freedom. 

In memoir, the author owes allegiance to what “really happened.” In fiction, truth lives in the emotional resonance, not the factual accuracy. Fiction allows for invention, exaggeration, metaphor. It gives us worlds we’ve never seen, time machines, and whole families who never existed but feel achingly real.

So when you ask me if my work is autobiography, you’re not appreciating the craft. You’re reducing it. You’re tugging the focus away from the architecture of the story, the themes, the imagery, the impact, and you’re sticking your nose into my personal life.

And honestly? That’s lazy reading.

If you want to read a writer’s work deeply, ask better questions:

  • What themes haunt this book?
  • How does this character’s struggle illuminate my own?
  • What did this story stir up in me, and why?
  • What questions does it leave me holding?

That’s the conversation worth having.

This is the soil where my fiction grows: experiences transformed into meaning, pain transmuted into art, threads woven into something bigger than myself.

So no. My fiction isn’t autobiography. My fiction is fiction. And if that disappoints you? Maybe you’re more interested in gossip than literature.

My fiction doesn’t reveal me. It exposes you—if you dare to pay attention.