Empowering Voices, Connecting Stories
Meet the dedicated individuals who bring passion and expertise to Unbound Authors.
JoyBelle Phelan
Co-Founder, Executive Director & Executive Editor of Mercury Mountain Media
JoyBelle Phelan is a writer, editor, and system-impacted leader. Her journey began while incarcerated, where writing became a lifeline and where she witnessed firsthand the power of storytelling to cultivate healing, connection, and hope.
Her work centers radical care, dignity, and imagination, and she brings a fierce belief that no one should be reduced to their worst moment. She is the recipient of the 2023 Solutions Journalism Audio Award, is a 2023 Dream Justice Fellowship graduate, and a 2024 Realness Project Exemplar Award honoree. She currently serves as Co-President of Unchained Voices and Associate Producer for Colorado Radio for Justice.
Her TEDx San Quentin talk, Phoenix Rising, is available on YouTube.
Libby Catchings, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Academic Director, Writing Labs & Anthology
Libby Catchings teaches writing, craft rhetorics, and critical prison studies at the University of Denver.
As a writing facilitator, she has supported community literacies in Denver homeless day shelters, women’s halfway houses, Colorado Corrections facilities, and juvenile detention facilities in California.
A firm believer in the liberatory power of play, she values experimental, visual, and kinaesthetic practice alongside writing toward self-knowledge and community-building.
Unbound Authors Board of Directors
Sarah McKenzie
A visual artist based in Boulder, Sarah McKenzie has exhibited her paintings nationally, including shows with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Yale School of Architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Since 2020 she has been working on an extended project researching and painting the architecture of prisons. In 2021, she was awarded the Marion International Fellowship for the Visual and Performing Arts to support her research into carceral space. That same year, she also began teaching art classes inside the Colorado Department of Corrections through the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative. In 2024, along with Lillian Stannard, Sarah founded Impact Arts, a nonprofit that creates and supports exhibition opportunities for formerly and currently incarcerated artists.
Benjamin Martin, MBA
A Colorado native and Senior Vice President of Commercial Lending at Collegiate Peaks Bank, Ben has been in Denver-based community banking since 2001, serving both small business and consumer clients. As former treasurer and advisory board member for Art from Ashes, Ben comes to Unbound Authors with expertise in nonprofit board governance, ethics, and finance.
Joseph Ponce, MFA
An MBA candidate and former Fulbright Scholar with an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, Joe comes to Unbound Authors with cross-genre expertise as both an author-editor and program manager at the University of Denver. His writings have appeared in Action: Spectacle, Anathema Magazine, Blunderbuss Magazine, and Apogee Journal, while his audio scripts have been published by the Eeriecast Network; Joe also teaches youth writing workshops with Lighthouse Writers.
Jamie Ray, J.D.
A Legal Fellow at the Korey Wise Innocence Project at the CU Boulder School of Law, Jamie Ray has years of experience working with reentry organizations in Colorado. Jamie coordinates Legislation Inside (LI), an innovative program that she first started at the Second Chance Center. Through LI, incarcerated representatives across Colorado learn about the legislative process, take positions on pending bills, and introduce legislation on issues important to the incarcerated population. Jamie Ray comes from small, tight-knit family that was heavily affected by incarceration, which led to her passion for criminal justice reform.
John Red Cloud
John is an advocate for the written word in its many different forms. Meaningful re-entry begins on the inside for the many returning citizens and the efforts of Unbound Authors provides a collaborative learning environment in the incarcerated space. As a formerly incarcerated person, John has first-hand experience of the importance of program offerings like what Unbound Authors has worked hard to take inside the walls. He is grateful to offer his insight into ways that Unbound Authors can have continued success for those on the inside seeking meaning while there.