Introducing Controlled Chaos: Where the Wild Things Read

“[W]hen people have vague ideas about authors, genre, or subject matter, I can find them a selection.”

“I help people either find themselves or lose themselves in a great book.”

Any librarian might describe their work in these terms, but the people who wrote them aren’t just any librarians: they are also incarcerated at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

Jarrod “Deuce” Williams, Knight, and George Coles-El, Mesro the Human Sun tell their stories in Controlled Chaos: Where the Wild Things Read, a new zine produced with the assistance of Megdi Abebe of up//root zines and the Friends of the San Quentin Library (FoSQL).

While we often talk about the barriers to access created by restrictive licensing agreements for digital content, incarcerated people face additional barriers to the kind of library services most of us take for granted. Organizations like FoSQL service incarcerated people by redirecting resources to the library, which is a vital place for information and connection.

Controlled Chaos highlights the lives of incarcerated library workers through their own writing and illustration. The structural challenges they face come to the fore in this zine–but so do the moments of grace afforded by meaningful work, access to information and the love for reading.

You can download a PDF Controlled Chaos on our website. Print copies of the zine will be available soon.

Megdi Abebe was the recipient of a 2024 Library Futures Research Network grant. Funding for this project was provided by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.