About

ABOUT

Sarah Shourd is an award-winning author, investigative journalist and playwright based in Oakland, CA. Over the last decade the majority of her work has centered around exposing the inhumanity of solitary confinement and the ways it which the practice enables mass incarceration in U.S. prisons. Shourd’s approach to her work in many ways reflects her unique life experiences. After the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, she became actively involved in the antiwar movement while finishing her undergraduate work at University of California, Berkeley. During this time, Shourd also lived as an International Human Rights Observer in Zapatista indigenous communities in Chiapas, Mexico. In 2008, she moved to Damascus, Syria to study Arabic, teach Iraqi refugees, and start out as a journalist. In 2009, Shourd’s life took a dramatic turn when she was captured by Iranian border guards while hiking near a tourist site in Northern Iraqi Kurdistan and imprisoned as a political hostage. Shourd was tortured and imprisoned in incommunicado, solitary confinement for 410 days in Iran's Evin Prison.

After her release in 2010, Shourd became an internationally known advocate against the overuse of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. As a UC Berkeley Visiting Scholar, she conducted a 3-year investigation into isolation in U.S prisons, interviewing 75 prisoners in 13 prisons across the U.S. Based on this investigation, Shourd wrote and produced a play, The BOX, which premiered in San Francisco in 2016 to sold-out audiences. She also co-authored an anthology, Hell is a Very Small Place, comprised of the stories of incarcerated Americans she collected. Her Op-eds and journalism have been published by The New York Times, Mother Jones, The Daily Beast, CNN, San Francisco Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters and many more. In 2015 she was a Ragdale Artist-in-Residence, one of 7x7 Magazine’s HOT 20 in 2016, a recipient of the GLIDE Memorial Church Community Hero Award in 2016 and in 2018 she was chosen for the prestigious John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

Awards & Honors

2020 My op-ed was selected as one of CNN’s “Op-eds that tell the story of the 2010s."
2018 Performed LIVE on The Moth Podcast
2017 Artist-in-Residence at Ragdale
2016 A recipient of the GLIDE Memorial Church Community Hero Award
2016 Selected as one of 7x7 Magazine’s HOT 20
2016 Writer-in-Residence at Blue Mountain Center
2015, '780 Days of Solitude,' selected for Best American Nonrequired Reading, published by Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt.
2015, Interviewed on NPR’s All Things Considered about my article on prisoner access to Facebook.
2014, Acceptance to Mesa Refuge Writing Retreat in Point Reyes Station, CA.
2013, Awarded Shuttleworth Foundation Flash Grant, for “brilliance and new ideas.”
2009, 3rd Place Winner for Transitions Abroad 2009 Narrative Travel Writing Contest, “Brave Eyes, Laughing Hearts: My First Encounter with Yemen.”

My Work Has Received Support From

: Entrekin Family Foundation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Flora Foundation, Forward Foundation, Further Foundation, Pacific Foundation Services/Yellow Chair Foundation, Neda Nobari Foundation, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Rembe/Rock Foundation, Shuttleworth Foundation Flash Grant, California Endowment, Vital Projects, Wattis Foundation and Zellerbach Family Foundation, as well as hundreds of individual donors.

Fellowships & Residencies

2020–current: Creative-in-Residence at The Battery in San Francisco
2018–2019: John S. Knight (JSK) Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, where I developed a methodology in conjunction with Stanford’s d.school on how to maximize a project’s impact through a user-centered approach to audience.
2017–2018: #LoveArmy Fellow at Dream Corps, where I worked with Van Jones and his team to write, edit, and host a podcast about divisiveness in America, Of Two Minds, produced by The Neda Nobari Foundation.
2017: Artist-in-Residence at Ragdale in
2016: Writer-in-Residence at Blue Mountain Center in
2014: Writer-in-Residence at Mesa Refuge Writing Retreat in Point Reyes Station, CA

Affiliations

American Civil Liberties Union, American Friends Service Committee, American University, Amnesty International, Anti-Recidivism Coalition, The Bail Project, Cal Matters, CIVIC Ambassador, Code Pink, Daily Beast, Democracy NOW!, Dream Corps, Each One Reach One, Human Rights Pen Pals, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Mother Jones, National-Iranian American Committee, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Prison Law Office, Prison Legal News, Reveal, Solitary Watch, Stanford Graphic Novel Project, Success Center, Underground Scholars, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, United4Iran, Uptown People’s Law Center, Z Space

Public Speaking

I've spoken at dozens of universities, private events, rallies and conferences such as American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International Key Note, Beyond Bars Conference, California Innocence Project, Chicago Northwestern University, Evergreen State College, Florida State, Howard Zinn Book Fair, Martha’s Vineyard, National Lawyers Guild, Princeton University, Pulitzer Center, SF Jail’s Reentry Program, SF’s Public Defenders Office, Stanford Bechtel I-Center, The Greater than Gatsby Gala, The Media Rumble Conference in New Delhi, UCLA, and many more.