Victoria Law

Victoria Law
Born	January, 1977 Jamaica, NY
Occupation	freelance writer and editor, prison abolition activist
Language	English
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Chinese American
Alma mater	Brooklyn College
Subject	English Literature
Notable works	Resistance Behind Bars: the Struggles of Incarcerated Women
Children	one

Victoria Law (born January 1977), who is familiarly known as Vikki, is an anarchist activist, writer, freelance editor, photographer and mother.

Biography

Law is of Chinese descent and was born and raised in Queens NY where she had her first brush with the law as an armed robber while still in high school.^[1] Her exposure to incarcerated people at Rikers Island prompted her to get involved with prison support. She has continued fighting for prison abolition, co-founding Books Through Bars NYC as a joint project between Blackout Books & Nightcrawlers Anarchist Black Cross in 1996 at the age of nineteen.^[2] The project moved to ABC No Rio in 1997 or 1998.^[3] A few years later, in 2003, at the prompting of women incarcerated in an Oregon prison, Law launched the zine Tenacious: Art and Writing from Women in Prison.^[4][5] (Note: the zine's title varies occasionally.) In 2009, after a decade of researching and writing about incarcerated women, Law published her first monograph with PM Press, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women, with a second edition released in 2012.^[6] She is a frequent invited speaker, especially since publishing the first edition of Resistance Behind Bars.^[7]

Law works with Books Through Bars (now located at Freebird Bookstore^[8] in Brooklyn). She has participated in many of the art and activism center's projects, including the Visual Arts Collective and the darkroom that she co-founded and co-built. She has had tangential involvement in the punk collective, as well, and was the primary caregiver of ABC No Rio's last remaining squatter, Cookiepuss (1996-2013), a calico cat.^[9]

In her twenties, after having a child, Law's activism began to include raising awareness of parents in anarchist communities' need for solidarity, including free childcare activities at events and protests. Together with long-time mamazine maker China Martens, Law began doing workshops and editing compilation zines about parenting for activists and their allies, called Don't Leave Your Friends Behind. The two eventually co-edited a book by the same name, also published by PM.^[10] As her child got older and Law engaged with the literature her child read, Law began to focus attention on the lack of racial diversity in young adult fiction, including writing a series of blog posts on girls of color in dystopia for Bitch Media.^[11]

Selected works

Books

• Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, 2012 & 2009^[12]
• Don't Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities, 2012. Edited with China Martens.^[13]

Zines

• Tenacious: Art & Writing from Women in Prison, 2003–present, editor^[14]
• Nefarious Doings series, about travel in Hong Kong and South Africa, 2006^[15]
• Many others, authored or edited^[16]
• Mamazines, contributor^[17]

Articles

Law's articles about gender, incarceration and resistance^[18]

Blog posts and web articles

Law is a regular contributor to online news and culture venues, most frequently

• BitchMedia^[19]
• Truthout^[20]

Awards

• 2013, Health Behind Bars Fellowship, John Jay’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice^[21]
• 2011, Brooklyn College Young Alumna Award^[22]
• 2009, Prevention for a Safer Society PASS Award for book Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women^[23]

External links

• Victoria Law: Freelance writer and editor
• Resistance Behind Bars site

References