Village resident and volunteer Steve McQueen is pictured with Kip, an inmate at Pickaway Correctional Institute, who was being recorded reading the 2018 children’s book, “The Word Collector” by Peter H. Reynolds. Kip and a number of other men incarcerated at Pickaway are participating in the Yellow Springs-based Story Chain program — an opportunity to connect the voices inside correctional institutions with their kin on the outside. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Story Chain’s newest connections
- Published: May 15, 2025
“Hi, Kitty. Do you want to read ‘Owl Babies’ with Daddy?”
There was no response from Nolan’s 3-year-old daughter — she wasn’t there. Still, Nolan opened the cover to Martin Waddell’s 1992 children’s book and began reading into a microphone.
“Once there were three baby owls: Sarah and Percy and Bill. They lived in a hole in the trunk of a tree with their Owl Mother. The hole had twigs and leaves and owl feathers in it. It was their house. One night they woke up and their Owl Mother was GONE. ‘Where’s Mommy?’ asked Sarah. ‘Oh my goodness!’ said Percy. ‘I want my mommy!’ said Bill.”
A few minutes later, under harsh prison lights, Nolan finished “Owl Babies,” and signed off.
“Daddy loves you, Kitty. I’ll see you soon.”
Over the last few months, Nolan and a few dozen other incarcerated men at Pickaway Correctional Institution have been participating in the Story Chain program — a Yellow Springs-based nonprofit connecting folks locked up, on the inside, with their families on the outside.
Launched in 2014 by village resident Jonathan Platt, Story Chain’s mission is to give inmates in area correctional facilities the opportunity to read children’s books aloud to their own kids — albeit from some distance, and from behind bars.
“We can’t be defined by the worst things we’ve done,” Platt told the News last week from the Story Chain office in the Yellow Springs United Methodist Church.
“These guys are more than inmates,” Platt said. “They’re also parents. They’re grandparents. And we’re giving them agency — agency to read aloud, to interact with other people, to use literature in a way to connect with their families, with their children.
Though the News has reported on the Story Chain initiative in the past, the 10-week program currently underway at Pickaway Correctional, just south of Columbus, has marked a major turning point for the homegrown nonprofit, Platt said.
Now, Story Chain has more funds and support than ever before. The Ohio Commission on Fatherhood recently gave the organization several thousand dollars, which have propped up Story Chain’s efforts with additional volunteers and paid helpers, better recording equipment to capture inmates’ voices and, ultimately, a more polished final product — bedtime story recordings of a higher quality, to be hand-delivered to the children and families of the incarcerated.
According to Platt, Story Chain has, over the last 11 years, worked with nearly 500 clients — that is, incarcerated individuals in area prisons and jails — and over 1,200 of their family members.
To date, Story Chain has done its work in four jails, three prisons, two halfway houses, two retirement centers and one center for developmental disabilities.
“And we’re just getting started,” Platt said with a smile.
On the inside
To see Story Chain’s work in motion, the News tagged along with Platt and village resident and volunteer Steve McQueen to Pickaway Correctional last week.
Located in Scioto Township, the prison currently holds about 1,600 minimum- and medium-security male inmates — about 76% of its capacity of 2,088.
Despite all the barbed wire around Pickaway’s perimeter, the intimidating guard towers and the lengthy process of getting cleared by security, McQueen said he relishes the twice-a-week opportunity to visit the prison. The work runs in his family, he said; his father was a minister and would often visit correctional facilities.
“I want to humanize people whenever possible,” McQueen mused on the hour-long drive from Yellow Springs. “I think it’s easy to sympathize with victims, but less so with offenders.”
The strangest part of working with Story Chain, McQueen said, has been hearing the inmates talk about time — not always in metrics of minutes or days, but in years.
“So, how many years they have left, how many years they’ve been here,” he said. “When I hear lengths of time like, say, 12 years, I think, ‘What was I doing 12 years ago?’ And today, coincidentally, is my 12-year anniversary of having met my wife. To imagine that would be erased, or not having happened is just … it’s just difficult for me to wrap my mind around that.”
When Platt, McQueen and this reporter arrived at Pickaway, security guards first had to clear us and go through our pre-approved possessions coming into the prison. A guard rummaged through a translucent bag with McQueen’s professional recording equipment. Phones were left in the car.
Platt’s children’s books were opened and riffled through. In them, the guard was checking for money, contraband and even drug-soaked paper strips — the latter of which have partially contributed to the 600% increase in drug and/or alcohol intoxication deaths in state prisons since 2001, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Pickaway made headlines in 2017 when four inmates overdosed on opioids in a single two-day period.
“We can’t be defined by the worst things we’ve done. These guys are more than inmates. They’re also parents. They’re grandparents.” — Jonathan Platt, executive director, Story Chain
Once cleared, a prison staffer led us through fluorescent hallways and labyrinthine stairwells, and seemingly far from any cells, into a classroom with a U-shaped table configuration. Some of the dozen inmates sitting around it were already smiling. It was time to get to work recording their voices.
While Platt led group activities — mostly around practicing enunciation and diction, sometimes by having the men read segments of Shel Silverstein’s “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” McQueen took a few men one-by-one into a makeshift recording space.
“Check, check, one, two”
With McQueen’s go-ahead and the green recording light on, one man, Muhammad, started reading aloud “Green Eggs and Ham,” by Dr. Seuss. Once getting through all the tongue twisters and being reminded by McQueen not to bump the microphone, Muhammad then read Mem Fox’s 1997 children’s book “Whoever You Are.”
Photo by Reilly Dixon
Muhammad said he chose the latter with his 7-year-old daughter, Bella, in mind. The book’s message of showing kindness and grace despite physical differences was something that could help her.
“My girl has been going through a little bit of bullying — people talking about her having glasses on and stuff like that,” Muhammad told the News. “I’m trying to get her to understand that no matter what anybody says, you gotta have a tough skin. Glasses or not, we’re all the same. If someone falls down and hurts themselves, if you fall down and hurt yourself, we all feel the same pain.”
Before reading “Owl Babies,” Nolan started with Mo Williams’ “Leonardo, the Terrible Monster” — another book that he thought his daughter, Kitty, might enjoy.
“This book was just something a little fun,” Nolan told the News. “I get to do different character voices and it ends on a positive note — that the thing you were always trying to be, maybe there’s something better. Leonardo was trying to be a scary monster, but in the end, he realizes he’s a better friend.”
When he finished reading, McQueen gave a thumbs up. Mike, another inmate in the recording room — there to offer feedback for his peers — had no notes to offer Nolan.
“Man, I told you that you should do this professionally,” Mike said.
Grinning widely, Nolan quipped,“I’d absolutely love to do this for a living one day.”
It’s voices like Nolan’s, McQueen later said, that make the post-production work more enjoyable. When the men get into their characters and employ silly voices that children enjoy hearing during story time, the final product is always better, McQueen said.
Later, McQueen will go a few steps further to layer sound effects and background music behind the recorded voices. The finished recordings will have all the sonic textures of an owl’s home or the various locations where Sam-I-Am enjoys eating his bizarre cuisine.
Lasting connections
Outside the sound booth and back in the full classroom, the other men were sitting in small groups, chatting casually about literacy, books, their kids and what Story Chain means to them.
“For me, this is about us in one generation helping other generations move forward,” Nate said. “Keeping kids reading. When my son visits, he tells me about the books he’s read, and the books he’s been reading to his nephew.”
Christopher agreed: “I like getting to leave a digital imprint. I have eight kids and a few grandchildren. This is absolutely about helping the next generations.”
Nolan kept thinking about his little Kitty at home — she was about to turn 2 when her father was incarcerated.
“There’s the obvious shame and regret and remorse of doing what I did to get in here, but there’s also the layer of me not wanting to have gone down the same path as my parents … and here I am,” Nolan said. “But this institution — and the whole Story Chain program — have really given me the chance to change. To learn to be the parent I should have been all along.”
A 2021 report from the Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy corroborates Nolan’s fears for Kitty: Children of the incarcerated are six times more likely than other children to be incarcerated at some point in their lives, and 70% of children of the incarcerated will become entwined in the nation’s criminal justice system in some way.
It’s those kinds of statistics Story Chain is working against, Platt later told the News, following the one-hour visit to Pickaway last week.
While the nonprofit works closely with incarcerated individuals — ideally boosting their self-worth, reducing the likelihood of recidivism, battling dehumanizing stigmas — Story Chain’s primary mission is geared toward their children and their well-being.
Photo by Reilly Dixon
“At the end of the day, this is a joyous program,” Platt said. “We are engaging with people who need to be engaged with the most, and doing something genuinely good for their kids.”
That joyous work of recording the voices of the men at Pickaway Correctional will come to a crescendo in early June.
On some tentative days at various libraries throughout Ohio — branches closest to the inmates’ families — Platt, McQueen and other Story Chain volunteers will pass along small, child-proof MP3 players containing dad’s voice, reading aloud their child’s next favorite bedtime story.
Those MP3s will also come with a bonus recording — a collaborative recording of many incarcerated men reading poetic snippets of “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
Additionally, from the boon of the Ohio Commission on Fatherhood’s grant money, Story Chain is able to provide the families in attendance at those June events with bags of groceries and gas money — valuable resources for the incarcerated men’s families that are likely single-income households.
“And maybe more important than all of that, these kids might be able to meet another kid of an incarcerated parent,” Platt said. “Isn’t that cool?”
All this and more is on the horizon for Story Chain. Platt said the plan is to launch another eight- to 10-week cycle at another correctional facility once their work at Pickaway is finished next month. In the meantime, Platt will continue relying on local supporters — including Mayor Pam Conine and Pat Peters — and influential figures in the area — like Judge Walter H. Rice and former Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman — for money and resources to continue Story Chain’s work.
“As a professional who spent over 40 years teaching reading to grade school students and how to teach reading to future teachers, I know the power and importance of the written word,” Mayor Pam said in an email to the News. “Story Chain continues this work with their clients, allowing them to share their voices with their children or other relatives on the outside. It’s a true labor of love and I’m happy to be a part of the program.”
“So, yes, we see the real, visceral messaging we can do,” Platt said. “This is about working as a community, doing this together and making a real impact on these kids’ lives.”
To that end, Platt invites everyone and anyone to link up with Story Chain’s efforts — the nonprofit is always seeking volunteers.
To get in contact with Story Chain, contact Jonathan Platt at jplatt.storychain@gmail.com, call 937-510-4600 or go to http://www.story-chain.org.
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