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, systems-builder, and formerly incarcerated leader working at the intersection of storytelling, education, and justice.
JoyBelle’s work centers dignity, access, and the belief that communication is a foundational skill for reentry, education, and civic participation. Through Unbound Authors and its publishing imprint, Mercury Mountain Media, she is building pathways for incarcerated writers to contribute to public conversations through journalism, storytelling, and collaborative media.
In addition to her work with Unbound Authors, JoyBelle serves as Project Coordinator for the American Penal Press Contest with the Pollen Initiative, supporting prison-based newspapers nationwide. She is also Co-President of Unchained Voices and Operations Manager with Colorado Radio for Justice.
JoyBelle began writing while incarcerated, where she experienced firsthand the power of storytelling to create connection, reflection, and possibility. Today, she brings that lived experience to building ethical, scalable systems that expand access to writing and media inside prison.
She is a published writer and speaker whose work has been featured nationally and internationally, including at TEDx San Quentin and EuroCrim. She is the recipient of the 2023 Solutions Journalism Audio Award, a 2024 Realness Project Exemplar Award, and is a graduate of the 2023 Dream Justice Fellowship.
Libby Catchings, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Writing Lab Director & Anthology Editor
Dr. Libby Catchings is a teacher, scholar, and leader in community literacy and prison-based writing education.
She is a Teaching Associate Professor in the University Writing Program at the University of Denver and Co-Editor of Community Literacy Journal, where she supports emerging and established scholars in community-engaged writing and research.
Through Unbound Authors, Libby leads the development of writing labs and pedagogy, supporting incarcerated writers across Colorado through structured, responsive, and relationship-centered learning environments.
As a writing facilitator, she has supported community literacies in Denver homeless day shelters, women’s halfway houses, Colorado correctional facilities, and juvenile detention facilities in California. A firm believer in the liberatory power of play, she values experimental, visual, and kinesthetic practices alongside writing as a tool for self-knowledge and community-building.
Libby’s research and teaching center rhetoric, writing studies, and prison-based literacies, with a focus on ethical engagement, embodied knowledge, and collaborative learning. She has published widely and presents nationally and internationally on prison education and community writing.
Unbound Authors Board of Directors
LaNaya Butler, Ph.D.
LaNaya Butler is an educator, facilitator, and strategist who creates spaces where reflection leads to transformation. Grounded in humanizing pedagogy and restorative justice, she facilitates dialogues that build understanding, intentional community, and creative problem-solving. She serves as Director of Innovation & Learning at Colorado Humanities, where she leads the Connection & Learning initiative through statewide programs and facilitator trainings that expand access to the public humanities while strengthening collaboration, learning, and evaluation across programs and partnerships. Butler holds a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction (Teaching & Learning Sciences) and specializes in culturally sustaining, experiential, and transformative education, with a commitment to ensuring that people from all communities are recognized as producers of knowledge.
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.