Ghosts Over the Boiler: Voices from Alabama's Death Row

From a donated typewriter that frequently breaks down, people on Alabama's death row have literally cut and pasted together a newsletter, On Wings of Hope, for the last three decades to educate the public about the death penalty. This newsletter, a labor of love, documents decades of work, wisdom, activism, and lived experience of those who have been executed, or are scheduled to be executed, by the state of Alabama. The writings also chart the changing policy and practice of capital punishment in the state that sentences more people to death per capita than any other in the US.

Ghosts Over the Boiler is a curated collection of poetry, visual art, photographs, essays, creative writings, and other archival materials that have emerged from Alabama's death row from the organization Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty (PHADP). This group was founded at Holman Correctional Facility and has been operating autonomously since 1989 toward its mission to abolish the death penalty in Alabama and in the nation.

Author: Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalt
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 03/15/2023
Pages: 344
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.73d
ISBN13: 9780826505293
ISBN10: 0826505295
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Human Rights
- Social Science | Capital Punishment
- Literary Criticism | American | General

About the Author
Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty is the nation's only 501c3 founded and run by people on death row. They have published the newsletter "On Wings of Hope" for more than thirty years.

Katie Owens-Murphy is an associate professor of English at the University of North Alabama and state coordinator for the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.