REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur fellow, he is the executive director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries across the country. For more than 20 years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and multiple collections of poetry, he transformed the American Book Award-winning Felon: Poems into a solo theater show that explores the post-incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making. In 2019, he won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his New York Times Magazine essay that chronicled his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe fellowship from Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim fellowship, an Emerson New America fellowship, and most recently a Civil Society fellowship at Aspen Institute. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.