Friends of the San Quentin Prison Library

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Friends of the San Quentin Prison Library Supporting the needs of prison libraries to better serve incarcerated patrons

Andrew, San Quentin librarian, and Kristi, Friends co-founder and librarian, went to a pre-convening of prison librarian...
06/29/2026

Andrew, San Quentin librarian, and Kristi, Friends co-founder and librarian, went to a pre-convening of prison librarians and to the American Library Association conference in Chicago last week. 📓🏙️

It’s always great to connect with folks doing related work and get inspired about other ideas and work we could be doing. 🤜🤛

Thanks to San Francisco Public Library Jail and Rebtry Service folks for the conference and all the work they do. Thanks to library futures and Library Freedom Project for a great Radical Book Buzz event at Pilsen Community Books! We love that bookstore and cool publishers like Seven Stories Press and Haymarket Books were there.

❤️🏳️‍🌈
uproot zines we saw the zine about the San Quentin Library you made at the library futures table at ALA!

We are excited to announce that the Stitchers of San Quentin is one of the 2026 Marin Cultural Association Art Grant rec...
06/09/2026

We are excited to announce that the Stitchers of San Quentin is one of the 2026 Marin Cultural Association Art Grant recipients! The group will be receiving $6,000 which will go towards materials for projects created for visiting families at San Quentin and for personal projects for the cohorts of Stitchers at San Quentin.

We want to thank the association and the .
“This activity is supported in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, through the Marin Cultural Association.”

The Stitchers are very excited to be part of the artists of Marin who are recognized and supported by this grant. 👏🎉❤️

We have wrapped up our March campaign to get books for the California Health Care Facility Library. Thanks to everyone w...
04/02/2026

We have wrapped up our March campaign to get books for the California Health Care Facility Library. Thanks to everyone who participated in supporting a medical needs prison near Stockton. 👍🏼📓📚💕

We will have book totals and pictures soon as the books start to arrive…then we pack them up and they get sent from the San Quentin Library to the CHCF Library via prison mail. 💌📦📖📬

Thank you to all our supporters for making this work possible! 😍😘

It’s almost the end of March already!  🌷🌿🧹 A bunch of books were purchased - even since we made this graphic- but there ...
03/27/2026

It’s almost the end of March already! 🌷🌿🧹

A bunch of books were purchased - even since we made this graphic- but there are still quite a few more we’d like to send to CHCF. Most are from Amazon - we only use them to get harder to find titles that aren’t easily available through more local / small options.

Please help us reach our goal of sending 100 books to the library at the California Health Care Facility where incarcerated people with health issues are housed.
🤞🏽👍🏼❤️📓

During March we are gathering requested books for a prison in Stockton that houses folks with health issues. ✏️📓👍🏼 We ne...
03/19/2026

During March we are gathering requested books for a prison in Stockton that houses folks with health issues. ✏️📓👍🏼
We need folks to buy more books from our 3 wish lists! You can choose from , or - we have lists for CHCF for all these options. Links are in our bio/linktree!

📦📥📫💌We want to send them lots of books!
They asked for a lot of westerns, and some psychology, reentry, and Spanish titles.
Thank you 🙏 😘👌

The world is crazy right now and we are all distracted…but we are still doing our book drive for the library at the Cali...
03/12/2026

The world is crazy right now and we are all distracted…but we are still doing our book drive for the library at the California Health Care Facility during March! 📦📥📚📓

Here are some of the kinds of books on our wish list: Spanish language, parole preparation, reentry books and drawing books! Not pictured here are tons of Westerns that the librarian at CHCF also requested.

You can find links to our 3 wishlists on our linktree in our bio. These pictures are from Coppperfield’s and Bookshop.org but we also have an Amazon wishlist.

Thank you for your support! 👌😘✏️👋

It’s our anniversary - we’ve been working with the San Quentin Library for 4 years now. ❤️📓🎉🎂🥳📚 We only send out one ema...
03/09/2026

It’s our anniversary - we’ve been working with the San Quentin Library for 4 years now. ❤️📓🎉🎂🥳📚
We only send out one email a year to our supporters with an update about what we’ve been up to; you can find it in our linktree or message us and we’ll email it out to you!

Right now, during the month of March, we are asking folks to support the incarcerated folds at the California Health Care Facility by purchasing books from our wish lists for their library. Links to 3 different wish lists in our linktree / bio.
Thank you!!! 🙏 😍

This month, Please purchase books for the library at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton! One of our book dr...
03/05/2026

This month, Please purchase books for the library at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton!
One of our book drive lists is with our local indie bookstore partner - we are continuing to add titles.
Thank you ❤️👌📓📚

During the month of March we are working to get more books for the library a the California Health Care Facility in Stoc...
03/01/2026

During the month of March we are working to get more books for the library a the California Health Care Facility in Stockton.

This prison is about the size of San Quentin, housing almost 3000 incarcerated folks who have medical needs. They are a relatively new facility and they need more books at their library.

They mostly asked for lots of Westerns, maybe because their population is older.

Please see our 3 different wish lists: Copperfield's is our local indie bookstore, Bookshop.org is a hub for small bookstores, and Amazon has access to books we can't always get otherwise.

PLEASE SEE OUR LINKTREE IN OUR BIO FOR LINKS TO THE WISHLISTS!
Thanks for your support.

Remember all those great photos and quotes we posted from Pelican Bay State Prison last September when we did a book dri...
02/18/2026

Remember all those great photos and quotes we posted from Pelican Bay State Prison last September when we did a book drive for their library? Well many of those photos are now on display at Alcatraz. AND the librarian and photographer who worked at PBSP and coordinated that project just got to visit the exhibit in person!

Librarian Andrew said: “It was so exciting for us to be able to see it together. We observed someone laugh out loud when she saw the ‘Anything but James Patterson’ photo and we then let her know our involvement in the project. That led to discussing the project with others on the tour and it was so nice to be able to share some details of who the individuals are.”

Tiffany posted these photos and wrote: “It’s the coolest thing to see your work on display at 1 of the most famous prisons in the country, Alcatraz. I’ve never felt anything as gratifying. To be given the privilege to give a voice to the those we lock away and forget about. It means so much to be able to see it in person. To see people interact, take photos, ask questions and share their thoughts out loud.

I’m not going to lie, I cried and I’m so proud of Andrew and I. This was his idea and his connections. I just took the pictures of the guys. I loved talking to the public about my former job and answering their questions. Telling them about the debate team that most of the guys featured in the pictures are a part of, the college program and all the good change that iisn’t seen behind closed doors.

I’m well aware I will be judged for the words that I write, for the kindness and humanity I show to the incarcerated population but I don’t regret it. It’s made me a better person and has fulfilled my cup. My life purpose. Thank you Andrew, the San Quentin Library, CDCR for letting us make a difference in any way we can. And to the park rangers at Alcatraz that gave us a hands on tour. It was a blast!!!! Thank you! ”

Address

P. O. Box 3885
Berkeley, CA
94703

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