Books Beyond Bars is a local initiative that goes into the women's section of the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside twice monthly to improve access to books, writing, and literature for incarcerated women.

Since 2005 Books Beyond Bars has and continues to:
- Distribute books and writing journals in a book exchange program,
- Collect writing, artwork and poetry for a zine, and now a book, called Words Without Walls,
- Offer a “Read Aloud” program in which we tape record women inside reading children’s books and then send the book and tape to their children outside,
- Organize writing and poetry workshops, both at Burnside and the Nova Institute for Women in Truro.

Books Beyond Bars operates with the belief that the prison system is fundamentally flawed. Sending women to prison does not support people in dealing with the issues that led to their incarceration: poverty, abuse, anger, addiction, etc. We visit the women’s prisons in NS to break down barriers between women who are caught in an unjust system and those of us on the outside involved with prison justice issues.

We always need donations of blank journals (no spiral ring binding). 

We are not accepting book donations at this time, except specifically books about, or especially TRUE STORIES of ....

drug abuse and recovery
alcoholism
mental health / institutionalization
eating disorders
abuse recovery

self help (recent, not 60s/70s paperbacks)
astrology / fortune telling
meditation / buddhism
dream dictionaries

poetry anthologies, poetry books
writing, being a writer

pregnancy and childbirth
women's health / menopause

black NS history
Native history / culture / stories
law books (not academic)
prisoner's stories / journals / biographies
True Crime

Large Print books
Literacy readers or workbooks