Phoenix rising | JoyBelle Phelan | TEDxSanQuentin 2022

Navigating the transition from incarceration is never easy. Hear one woman's journey of what led her to prison and the redemptive powers she found while inside. JoyBelle Phelan, a Colorado native, has been creative since childhood, playing piano, flute, violin, viola, and cello also using her vocal skills in the annual school musical and competing at State Championships as a senior in high school. She was incarcerated twice, for a total of seven years behind the walls. She passionately believes that no one should be remembered for their worst decision. She is using her lived experience to challenge the perceptions of what prison is like for women and what re-entry can look like. While inside, she completed Cosmetology, Defy Ventures CEO YNL, Art of Being Human, Inside-Out Prison Exchange, Beyond Thinking, and several arts-based workshops offered by the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative. She is the first Outreach Fellow named at the Prison Journalism Project and participates in the first cohort of PJP Journalism School. She has been a guest on multiple podcasts focused on re-entry since her release in December 2020.