Grants & Fellowship Awards

  • 2019 - 2020 PEN America Writing For Justice Fellowship. Arthur teamed with journalist Maurice Chammah, staff writer at The Marshall Project, to develop Journal of a State-Raised Prisoner in the Age of Mass Incarceration, a book-length compilation of creative nonfiction essays that elucidates the foster-care-to-prison pipeline.
  • 2019 Solitary Confinement Reporting Project grant award, April 9th, 2019 (Arthur is one of only fourteen incarcerated writers in the nation to win this grant).

Literary Awards

  • 2017 PEN Prison Writing Award, 1st Place Memoir, "How to Kill Someone", PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org) (this essay was nominated by PEN for the Pushcart Prize).
  • 2016 PEN Prison Writing Award, 3rd Place Essay, “The Yard: Mass Incarceration on the Inside”, PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org).
  • 2016 PEN Prison Writing Award, Honorable Mention Fiction, “The Ocean”, PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org).
  • 2016 InterNational Prisoner’s Family Conference, 1st Place Memoir, “Walla Walla: The Experience of Growing Up in Mass Incarceration”.
  • 2013 PEN Prison Writing Award, 2nd Place Memoir, “The Chain”, PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org).
  • 2010 PEN Prison Writing Award, 1st Place Memoir, “Walla Walla IMU”, PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org).
  • 2008 PEN Prison Writing Award, Honorable Mention Essay, “The Hole”, PEN American Center, NYC (PEN.org).