Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer and the Founder & CEO of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the opening of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country.

For more than twenty-years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making.