"We’re trying to get a child out of a jail to do a spelling bee. I just never thought those words would go together.”

I'm a writer and editor who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and I've written for a variety of publications across the last 20 years, including The New York Times, The Guardian, GQ, New York Magazine, Pitchfork, The Fader—the list goes on.

This is an image of a similar detention center in Miami, Florida.