“But how do you get paid?!”

It took my husband at least two separate times at the dinner table to convince me to fully take the leap of faith. “This is what you are meant to do,” he’d told me. “This. This right here. You’re doing the right thing. Don’t worry about anyone else.”

You see, not everyone in my life understood why I’d sell all my assets and shut down a 14-year career to volunteer in a women’s prison. “But how do you get paid?” was the #1 question I’d get. And still do.

I don’t need to have seven digits in the bank to feel like a millionaire. Showing incarcerated people that they can write a great novel and hold it in their hands is seriously my American dream. No white picket fence needed.