A few days ago, I wrote about what it means to experience time in solitary confinement—or more accurately, what it means when your sense of time is taken away. There’s one thing I’ve found that has the power to make a difference.

For people in solitary, so much of life becomes waiting, without any sense of when or if time will ever return to normal. With no human contact, there’s nothing to plan for. No way to mark the time. The hours and days merge together. And it can go on for years—even decades—on end.

But the work I do involves a different kind of waiting—and it’s filled with hope, humanity, and compassion.

It’s when someone living in solitary confinement is waiting for their next letter from their pen pal. It’s an eager kind of waiting—an excitement to hear from their one, singular connection to the world outside. From someone who knows them.

As director of Lifelines to Solitary, I’ve connected hundreds of people in extreme isolation with compassionate, volunteer pen pals in the outside world. By exchanging letters that provide connection and meaning, they’re the one antidote to the stopped clock, offering a sense of what time looks like beyond the prison’s reach, and, however briefly, a way to structure time for themselves.

Today, Lifelines supports hundreds of active pen pal relationships between people in solitary and people on the outside. But our funding is limited, and hundreds more are still on our waiting list, waiting for a pen pal. Waiting for some hope.

That’s the pain—the waiting for hope—I’m committed to fighting.

But Lifelines requires staff time, postage, mail processing, outreach, and support to keep these connections—these relationships—alive. We have an amazing, small team of people who keep Lifelines going—and I’m proud to say: we’re ready to do more. To grow our program as much as possible, connecting as many people as there are in solitary.

But that takes funding, and that means help from you.

If this work speaks to you the way it does to me and the team at Solitary Watch, you can help by joining our 2026 Match campaign. It’s an amazing opportunity to double your contribution, and get every person off the waiting list and exchanging letters  with someone who cares.

That simple act of caring is why Lifelines exists.

We all depend on the compassion and generosity of one another, and I’m honored to be at the forefront of an effort that’s made up of such kind, giving people.

To all who have supported us in the past, and to those who are about to make that choice today: thank you for caring about people who are too often forgotten in their cells, waiting.

With gratitude and love,

Marlies Talay
Director of Lifelines to Solitary
Solitary Watch

P.S. If you missed it, you can read the piece I wrote last week for The Word: The Radical Humanity of Prison Correspondence