Student provides platform for advice from former American prisoners in historic project
A BA TV and Radio Production student secured the opportunity to share the stories of former American prisoners and their advice for younger generations as part of a historic project dating back more than 20 years.
Nathan Holt joined the Brown Creek Engagement Project in July 2025 as a Media Assistant to Creative Writing lecturer, Dr Alicia Rouverol.
The project began through an oral history workshop Alicia led at Brown Creek Correctional Institution (North Carolina, USA), a medium-security, all-male prison, more than two decades ago, under the sponsorship of the Southern Oral History Program, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she worked at the time.
The three-year initiative sought to use oral history, storytelling and performance as a tool for the men in Brown Creeks education programme to reach young people, in the hopes of steering them away from landing in prison.
Alicia said: The men were cut off from their predecessors, and they were cut off from the next generation as well.
I went in and found the men were very keen to have their stories shared with at-risk youth, and that was the inception of the project.
"Storytelling was, for the men, a way too to keep their identities alive.
In 2001, this motivation to share the lived experiences of prisoners resulted in a performance involving eight of the men for audiences of at-risk youth, co-created by Alicia, theatre director Marlene Richardson and the men. 125 young people, already in the judicial system, attended the performance over multiple days.
The play, Leaves of Magnolia, focused on the mens journeys leading to incarceration. A magnolia never loses its leaves; this served as a metaphor for the mens identities that could not be stripped away, even in an institution like prison.
The performance incorporated themes of abuse, searching for belonging, early run-ins with the law, and life in prison. Some of which aligned heavily with the young audience.
In August 2023, Rouverol, with support from 窪蹋勛圖厙 English Research funding, undertook a reunion with the men, long since released. Five out of the eight original performers were brought back into the project.
At this point, Rouverol had built connections with the men and established a level of trust from the years spent on the project and subsequent interviewing and conversing. She had followed one in particular, from their time in prison well into their release.
She said: The reunion was very meaningful for the men, and when we met up again in May wed made the transition into being current with their lives.
When you do a long-term project and this is now a longitudinal study the relationship becomes much more profound over time.
With support from the 窪蹋勛圖厙 Public Policy Support Fund, Rouverol interviewed the men once again in May 2025 with her team, including filmmaker Kenny Dalsheimer, where they created the interview content for the video clips (as shown below).
The clips also featured Dalsheimers footage from the original performances and photographs of the men and youth taken by project photographer Cedric N. Chatterley.
Alicia then recruited Nathan Holt to adapt the videos for social media and pull out the key messages to reach the current generations at-risk youth.
Nathan was tasked to create shorter clips from Dalsheimers five long video interviews (shown below). He aimed to capture the stories and advice in detail for the motivational shorts to be shared on TikTok and Instagram with the hopes of going viral.
He said: I wanted to do something more meaningful in the summer.
I looked at the content and thought, well, this is inspiring, you have these people who have been incarcerated who are saying don't make the same mistakes that we did.
With the popularity of motivational shorts and hopecore across social media platforms, Nathan knew this was a route of success to go down.
Each video clip gives different inspirational advice focusing on the range of experiences each man had dealt with in and out of prison. This includes emphasis on achieving an education and not giving up.
Reflecting on Nathans contribution, Rouverol added: We were treating Nathan like a professional; and thats what we need to do for our students if theyre going to go out and perform in this line of work.
At the end of the project, Nathan had really stood up to the task and the shorts are fantastic.
Nathans involvement in the project extended the message from a previously limited audience to a wider reach.
His shorts are posted on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, where he has worked his influence on each interview to appeal to the platforms users.
Rouverol will continue to develop the project through a forthcoming book which she hopes to begin writing next summer. It will explore the mens stories and the challenges to identity they faced whilst incarcerated.
The men never claimed they shouldnt have been imprisoned, she said, rather it was how they were incarcerated. They recognised the profound effects on their identities.
Prison, as its designed in the US, Rouverol added, "serves to disconnect individuals right at the point where connection is most needed.
The book, The Men at Brown Creek: Lessons from a Penitentiary, a hybrid work written in a fragmentary form, will address this and other issues, including a reconsideration of incarceration and the systems we have tacitly agreed. It will also consider alternative prisons systems elsewhere in the globe that are more rehabilitative in approach.
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