Jailhouse write! Riker's Island has become an incubator for literary production

Corey Kilgannon, How a Notorious Jail Became a Literary Hotbed, NYTimes, Feb. 18, 2024.

A female inmate falls for a handsome guard. He’s really a former con man in witness protection. Their forbidden flirtations smolder toward a climax: Murder!

It happened not on Rikers Island, but in “Rikers Island.”

The book, a 406-page romantic drama that sells for $18.99 on Amazon, is part of a expansive genre inspired by New York’s troubled jail complex. The authors are detainees and correction officers who have written scores of Rikers books, ...