BOLT CUTTERS COHORT
A program for authors who have been incarcerated, jailed, or detained by ICE
Authors who have served time inside prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers have vital stories to share. The Bolt Cutters Cohort is here to support system-impacted writers to further their writing project. It is fully funded for all accepted participants.
For updates about future Bolt Cutter opportunities, please join our mailing list.
Congratulations to the 2025 Cohort:
Bre’Onna “Breezy” Powell
Davi Gray
Julia Arroyo
Jeffrey Dorr-Slowey
Justice Rivera
Lukas Alan Dietsche
Mary McBeth
Tiheba Bain
Troy Gaston
Hear from members of the 2024 Bolt Cutters Cohort
What’s Included
Interactive Cohort Gatherings
Learn from writers who share expertise, offer generative writing prompts, discuss assigned readings, and answer your questions.
Café Unicorn
Write your book in facilitated co-writing sessions, with supportive prompts and check-in circles.
Solve Your Story Group Coaching
Brainstorm with peers and a coach to get real-time help with your book’s problems.
Private Unicorn Clubhouse
Chat with other cohort members online and use our curated toolkit of resources for every stage of the writing process.
Bolt Cutters Program Coordinator
Tijanna O. Eaton (Tə-zha-na) is a Black masculine of center dyke with a high school diploma and a rap sheet who has been in recovery since 1994. She was a member of the Unicorn Authors Club from its inception in October 2020 through March 2023 before transitioning to team member. While in the Club, Tijanna completed an agent-ready draft of her jail crime memoir, BOLT Cutters, which tells the stories of her twelve arrests in three years in the early nineties and chronicles her descent into heroin addiction, jail, prostitution, and homelessness. Tijanna has served on the Five Keys Schools and Programs Board of Directors since 2006 and became Board Chair in 2021. Tijanna is the proud recipient of Unicorn Authors Club’s inaugural 2021 Alumni Award, a 2023 Rooted & Written Fellow, and a 2024 Soros Justice Fellow. Her work has appeared in Honey Literary, Panorama Journal, Noyo Review, Yellow Arrow Journal, and slips slips. Tijanna was the 2024 Best of the Net nonfiction judge and is a 2025 Money for Women judge.
Meet Our 2024 Bolt Cutter Writers
