Leo Cardez is an award-winning inmate writer. Cardez is a Pushcart Press Prize and Best Essays in America-nominated essayist and journalist. Mr. Cardez is a winner of the prestigious PEN America Award and was published in a print anthology earlier this year, Prison Blues. His work has been or is scheduled to be published in Under the Sun, The Abolitionist/Critical Resistance, The Crime Report, Minutes Before Six, Prison Journalism Project, Beat Within, Fortune News, Breakthrough Magazine among others. He was a finalist for the New Press Anthology, What We Know. Leo is a regular contributor to Prison Health News where he also serves on the Advisory Board. L.C. has worked as a prison GED tutor, COVID-19 quarantine wing sanitation specialist, and currently works as a clerk at the prison eye lab. He volunteers as a yoga instructor for special needs inmates and translator for Spanish-speaking offenders. Mr. Cardez is a proud first generation Hispanic immigrant, decorated veteran, devout Christian, and is passionate about using his voice to bring awareness of criminal justice and mental health/addiction issues. He can be reached at Leo.Cardez.Writer@gmail.com.