We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nate Johnson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nate below.
Nate, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I found my purpose — and the mission of FreeWriters, the nonprofit organization I founded — through a combination of service work and the persistent pursuit of fun and meaningful creative outlets. The service work came via a 12-step recovery program I practice; namely, a “sponsee” of mine (aka mentee) — we’ll call him Jim — got in trouble back in 2019 and went to jail for 60 days. In trying to serve and support Jim in his time of need, I paid him regular visits and learned the harrowing truth about many county and city jails in this country: residents have little or no access to fresh air, natural light, or creative arts programming. Putting myself in Jim’s place as best I could, I realized I’d lose my mind very quickly in such conditions, so I tried to figure out a way to help. This is where my creative pursuits and practices came into the picture. I’d recently learned a practice called “free-writing” in a creative writing seminar in Minneapolis. Free-writing involves five-minute bursts of prompt-based, improvised, nonstop writing followed by optional sharing aloud to fellow students. My seminar learned the practice as a means of making a first draft, but I immediately found it to be highly therapeutic, and tons of fun….so I formed a group of friends to free-write when the seminar ended. Soon thereafter, Jim went to jail, and naturally I taught him the free-writing method to help him stay sane and positive in jail — and the writing helped him a great deal, just as it had helped me. That’s when I found my purpose.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
FreeWriters brings mindful “free-writing” classes into an ever-expanding number of county jails. As I mentioned earlier, unlike prisons, jails tend not to have windows, outdoor spaces, or consistent creative arts programming. And many jails in major American cities are strictly pre-trial, which means the residents haven’t yet had their day in court, and lack the funds to post bail. Many if not most of these men and women also deal with past trauma, addiction, and untreated mental illness. It’s harder for jails to get consistent classroom programming because the average stay in jail is usually a month or two (much shorter than in prisons, where the residents have already been convicted and sentenced for felonies) which means most ciriculum-based programs don’t work for jail residents. That said, many FreeWriters students linger in jail for months or years while they fight their charges. The great thing about a FreeWriters class — which consists of three, five-minute writing and performing exercises — is that a participant can light up with newfound hope and optimism from just one class, indeed, from just one free-write!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I’ve always been motivated to feel better in my brain and body (just like so many FreeWriters jail participants, I too struggle with addiction and depression/anxiety); I’ve always found solace and joy both in appreciating and practicing the arts (especially writing, literature, and music); and I’ve always wanted to share my passions and discoveries with others, especially people who are struggling or don’t feel they fit very well in our society. My advice — especially to my fellow oddballs 🙂 — is to try to find a way to bring your curiosity, passion, conviction, and even your insecurity out among other humans so that they might be comforted and feel less alone and afraid. This type of sharing and collective healing is, in my experience, one of the great joys of living.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
FreeWriters is a start-up nonprofit doing its best to become a sustaining nonprofit. We’ve been blessed to find scores of good people with creative, legal, and social justice backgrounds to help lead our writing classes and serve on our board….but what we really need now are volunteer advisors and board members with backgrounds in finance, strategic planning, and HR. These areas seem to represent our most significant hurdles to responsible growth and expansion to new jails in new cities. We’ve got such an amazing, simple, scalable, healing method to share, and thanks to those initial visits I paid to Jim in the county jail, we have identified a very large group of people who sorely need our services.
Contact Info:
- Website: FreeWriters.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freewritersmn/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FreeWritersMinnesota/
- Twitter: https://x.com/FreeWritersMN
Image Credits
Damian Johansson
