For the past dozen years, Judy Breen was a beloved and familiar literary presence at San Quentin.
“I will miss all of you…I hope that men will not be kept in here unnecessarily,” she said during her final interview at San Quentin. She has retired for medical reasons and is moving to New York.
Breen became interested in prisons during a London sabbatical from her San Francisco State teaching job.
When she returned home, she heard about the need for volunteer professors at San Quentin.
Breen is famous at San Quentin for her video literacy project (VLP) aired by SQTV book reviews. Some of the books reviewed by Breen are:
“Race Matters” by Corwell West, “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz, “New Jack” by Ted Conover, “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff, “Incidents in the life of a slave girl” by Harriet Jacob, “Education of a Felon” by Edward Bunker, “The Road” by Cormack McCarthy and “Skeleton Crew” by Stephen King.
— Fernando Lemus contributed to this story
