Derek R. Trumbo, Sr., a multiple-time PEN Prison Writing Award winner, is an essayist, playwright, and author whose writing has been featured in The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer's Life in Prison (Haymarket Books, 2022), Vera Institute of Justice's The Human Toil of Jail project, and Tacenda Literary Magazine. His plays have won or placed in the top 3 at the Kentucky Theatre Association Roots of the Bluegrass New Plays Festival three years running. A Madeline L'Engle/Rahman Mentorship Award-winning essayist, Trumbo mentored, instructed, and facilitated writing circles while he was incarcerated. He was released in 2025 and continues to publish his column, “Never eat the candy on the pillow,” with Prism Reports.