Kwaneta Harris is an incarcerated journalist in a Texas prison for women in Gatesville, where women on death row are also housed. Recently named a 2026-2028 Galaxy Changemaker Fellow, she serves as a Senior Writer and Editor for Solitary Watch and Lead Advisor for Look2Justice. A wide range of publications include her writings: Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, The Marshall Project, Scalawag, Prism, The Appeal, and Teen Vogue. Kwaneta writes on Substack at Write or Die. Her work appears in the anthology of poetry, prose, and visual art titled Winter in America (Again. A recent essay, “I Was Not Sentenced to be Raped” will debut in the upcoming Winter in America (Still (Carbonation Press.)

In her writing, Harris illuminates how the experience of being incarcerated in Texas is vastly different for women in ways that directly map onto a culture rooted in misogyny. Her work exposes how the intersection of gender, race, and place contributes to state-sanctioned,
gender-based violence. Previously she lived in solitary confinement for eight and a half years, twenty-three hours each day, just under the twenty-four-hour restriction. See her piece “23:59” in Solitary Watch: https://solitarywatch.org/2025/02/04/2359/. Recently, Kwaneta was placed in “medium” security, defined as a twenty-hour confinement. Inmates leave the cell twice each week for outside recreation, a one-hour visit daily to a dayroom, and walks to the cafeteria for meals. She shared with me through a program at the University of Arizona called Free Time: Writers Inside and Out: “I was told the prison administration are not fans of my writing.”

Katie Sarah Zale
Tucson, AZ
Co-Editor of Winter in America (Again