Contact
Get in touch
Incarcerated people interested in a writing partnership can write to:
Inside-Outside Study Group
P.O. BOX 32
Walton, NY 13856
Outside folks can send an email to: info@ioliberation.org
Who we are
I-O members are incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and people who have never been incarcerated.
Our founding members are students of Soto Zen and other schools of Buddhism. Many I-O participants have Buddhist practices, but not all. People of all faiths, atheists, and agnostics are welcome in I-O.
Yakusan Shapiro is I-O’s co-founder and steward. Until the 2025 New York State wildcat prison staff strike, she worked as a volunteer chaplain at a men’s medium security prison where she facilitated the Buddhist Group, which she helped establish, and co-facilitated the Hospice Aides Training Group. She is a guest teacher in Frostburg State University’s social work program, leading the prison focus. She co-founded ZIP (Zen in Prisons), an inter-sangha prison dharma connection and action group and is a formal student of Koshin Paley Ellison at the New York Zen Center, where she was also a mentor in the Foundations in Contemplative Care.
I-O functions by steering committee and by community learning and decision making.
The 2025 steering committee is: Sho En Scott, Kokai Viola, GE Washington, Robert Williamson
Our history
I-O started in 2018 when Pema Marcantel wrote to the New York Zen Center from an Illinois prison, seeking connection and information. As a formal student of NYZC, Yakusan responded. Friendship and trust grew. In 2020, they co-founded the Inside-Outside Study Group as a community-based group of the center.
While incarcerated, Pema became a formal student of Tibetan Buddhism in the Nyingma tradition and went on to earn a BA and and MA. She also completed chaplaincy training with the Udumbara Zen Center and began offering hospice care at the prison For several years, Pema also guided a popular meditation class of fifty people. Pema was released in July 2022 after a twenty-three-year sentence. Her experience and heart are at the core of I-O.
In 2024, I-O left the important incubation period inside of NYZC and become an independent group.