For several years, Wally Lamb, the author of two of the most beloved
novels of our time, has run a writing workshop at the York Correctional
Institution, Connecticut's only maximum-security prison for women.
Writing, Lamb discovered, was a way for these women to face their fears
and failures and begin to imagine better lives. Couldn't Keep It to
Myself, a collection of their essays, was published in 2003 to great
critical acclaim. With I'll Fly Away, Lamb offers readers a new volume
of intimate pieces from the York workshop. Startling, heartbreaking, and
inspiring, these stories are as varied as the individuals who wrote
them, but each illuminates an important core truth: that a life can be
altered through self-awareness and the power of the written word.