How to run a festival in a prison | David Kendall and Jailhouse Moose Ten years ago, David Kendall decided to put on an entire festival of arts and literature inside HMP Lewes. This was the birth of Penned Up, a unique annual event which is now in its tenth year, and which has found…
The Secret Life Of Prisons podcast
10 Years Of Penned Up in Clinks
Celebrating 10 years of Penned Up (2015 – 2025) The festival started in HMP Lewes in 2015, it has run programmes in Downview and Erlestoke, with the latter becoming its base. The model is always a committee of prisoners working with the festival directors to put together a programme reflecting the interests and needs of…
Article in Inside Time
From prisoner to TV actorA group of men are crammed into a not-very-big room. Perhaps as many as 40, standing room filled too. In front of them one man is talking, telling them about his life, his story as he grew up with a drug-dealing mother who was eventually taken into prison. Then he turned…
Penned Up in the Big Issue!
Penned Up creator David Kendall on curating a decade of inspirational literary events in prisons, with Nick Cave among the guest speakers Penned Up is a unique literary festival created for and with people in prison. This year, we mark the tenth anniversary of Penned Up with our 11th festival and our seventh at HMP…
