Language English Subject English Literature | Ethnicity Chinese American Nationality American Name Victoria Law | |
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Occupation freelance writer and editor, prison abolition activist | ||
Forum on solitary confinement victoria law author of resistance behind bars
Victoria Law (born January 1977), who is familiarly known as Vikki, is an anarchist activist, writer, freelance editor, photographer and mother.
Contents
- Forum on solitary confinement victoria law author of resistance behind bars
- Biography
- Books
- Zines
- Articles
- Blog posts and web articles
- Awards
- References
Biography
Law is of Chinese descent and was born and raised in Queens NY where she had her first brush with the law as an armed robber while still in high school. Her exposure to incarcerated people at Rikers Island prompted her to get involved with prison support. She has continued fighting for prison abolition, co-founding Books Through Bars NYC as a joint project between Blackout Books & Nightcrawlers Anarchist Black Cross in 1996 at the age of nineteen. The project moved to ABC No Rio in 1997 or 1998. A few years later, in 2003, at the prompting of women incarcerated in an Oregon prison, Law launched the zine Tenacious: Art and Writing from Women in Prison. (Note: the zine's title varies occasionally.) In 2009, after a decade of researching and writing about incarcerated women in the United States, Law published her first monograph with PM Press, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, with a second edition released in 2012. She is a frequent invited speaker, especially since publishing the first edition of Resistance Behind Bars.
Law works with Books Through Bars (now located at Freebird Bookstore in Brooklyn). She has participated in many of the art and activism center's projects, including the Visual Arts Collective and the darkroom that she co-founded and co-built. She has had tangential involvement in the punk collective, as well, and was the primary caregiver of ABC No Rio's last remaining squatter, Cookiepuss (1996-2013), a calico cat.
In her twenties, after having a child, Law's activism began to include raising awareness of parents in anarchist communities' need for solidarity, including free childcare activities at events and protests. Together with long-time mamazine maker China Martens, Law began doing workshops and editing compilation zines about parenting for activists and their allies, called Don't Leave Your Friends Behind. The two eventually co-edited a book by the same name, also published by PM. As her child got older and Law engaged with the literature her child read, Law began to focus attention on the lack of racial diversity in young adult fiction, including writing a series of blog posts on girls of color in dystopia for Bitch Media.
Books
Zines
Articles
Law's articles about gender, incarceration and resistance
Blog posts and web articles
Law is a regular contributor to online news and culture venues, most frequently