Mark Krancer is an award-winning photographer, author, and entrepreneur whose journey reflects both resilience and creativity. After overcoming the challenges of reentering society following a conviction, he rebuilt his life from the ground up, founding Kram Kran Photo in 2016 as the cornerstone of his artistic career.
Today, Mark serves as the official photographer for numerous nonprofits, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), while also teaching photography and openly sharing his story of recovery, freedom, and sobriety. His work has earned national recognition, with a Pulitzer Prize nomination, multiple Scenic America contest wins, and two Florida Preservation Awards for outstanding Media and Communication.
Each month, The Carrier Pigeon Post publishes and distributes, free of charge,
a 4-color, 8-page, hope-filled, newsprint paper. We do so because we believe in the possibilities afforded by narrative-inspired imagination.
The Carrier Pigeon Post encourages cultural competency and teaches cultural literacy. The paper features short, 300-500 word stories, written at a 6th-grade level, specifically crafted and curated for those who have been incarcerated. The articles feature narratives, paintings, sculpture, photography, landmarks, political figures, celebrities, literature, historical events and documents, monuments, multicultural folktales, finance, and science.
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It all started with some simple correspondence with a few incarcerated individuals. Then some books were sent to those incarcerated, books filled with stories that proved liberative to those confined to a cell.
Over the course of a decade, one at a time, books were slowly but surely sent to various incarcerated persons in institutions all over the state of Florida. Word, slowly but surely, made its way back about the value and importance of these books, about how what was found inside the books,the stories they told, inspired and nurtured hope. The desire was for more—to have repeated and widespread reach, to impact more people, more often, and to inspire and to accommodate long-term intellectual growth. And so, The Carrier Pigeon Post was born.
Staff and Board of Directors for The Carrier Pigeon Post
A New Testament scholar and public theologian, Sonya S. Cronin has taught in the Department of Religion at Florida State University for two decades — including FSU’s study-abroad programs in London and Florence — and is the author of two academic books, most recently “The Repentance of YHWH” (Fortress Press, 2025).
For more than ten years she carried books into Florida’s prisons, one reader at a time, and she co-founded and chaired Joseph House, a residential home of welcome for men returning from incarceration. That double vantage — the scholar of story and the practitioner of reentry — is the seed of The Carrier Pigeon Post. She has seen how a narrative can give direction to the aimless and hope to the confined, and she founded CPP to carry that hope, at scale, to more than 180prisons and reentry facilities each month.
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Hannah Katanic gives The Carrier Pigeon Post its form. A designer, website builder, and project manager with years of experience across nonprofit and commercial organizations, she created CPP’s entire visual identity, built and maintains its website, and each month carries the paper from concept to print — layout, digital production, and design.
Before CPP she led development and branding for a reentry nonprofit, work she now brings to bear on CPP’s own growth. She is also the one who sits with the oral histories of incarcerated writers, transcribing their spoken words into text that can be read and published. Her craft is accessible literacy: a four-color, eight-page paper written to meet readers where they are, turning story and voice into something legible, beautiful, and welcoming. For Hannah, design is an act of respect — the difference between words on a page and a paper a reader reaches for.
Carey C. Newman has spent three decades in academic publishing, most notably as director of Baylor University Press for seventeen years, where he built a modest operation into one of the most respected religion publishers in the country. He has also served as an editor at Westminster John Knox, Brill, and Fortress Press.
Across that career he has shepherded more than 800 books from idea to reader and taught countless authors the craft of storytelling — a craft he distilled in his own book, Mango Tree: The Artistry and Alchemy of Writing (Friendship Press,2023). He holds a Ph.D. from Baylor and has lectured on writing and publishing from Oxford to Beijing, from Havana to Vancouver. At The Carrier Pigeon Post he brings the full discipline of publishing—acquisition, editing, design,production, and distribution — to a single purpose: putting story into the hands of incarcerated readers every month, work he has also framed, in his own scholarship, as a public theology.
Dr. Micah McCreary is the President and John Henry Livingston Professor of Theology at New Brunswick Theological Seminar in New Brunswick, New Jersey, as well as a licensed clinical therapist. He is experienced in support structures for those incarcerated and those reentering society. Dr. McCreary is well versed in the multifaceted aspects of incarceration’s effects on families and minority communities.
Chloe Scott is an undergrad at the University of Central Florida. At UCF, she volunteers with the Florida Prison Education Project to inform students about the merits of educational programs for those incarcerated. In addition, she is a board member of UCF's Students For Education in Prison, which aims to teach students about the reality of our justice system. She is a tutor for the Adult Literacy League, helping older students improve their reading, speech, and writing skills.
Eliza Louise Newman is a photographer and writer based in New York City. Originally from Waco, Texas, she received her B.S. from Baylor University and an MFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design.
Her work explores people, place, and the ways we experience the world around us, with a particular interest in the built environment, natural landscapes, and the relationship between humans and the land. Through photography and writing, Eliza is drawn to the quieter details of a place and the stories that might otherwise go unseen.
As a photographer and contributor to The Carrier Pigeon Post, Eliza creates original photo journalistic essays and visual stories that bring the outside world to CPP’s readers. Her work for the paper is rooted in curiosity, observation, and the belief that images can offer a meaningful connection to places, people, and experiences beyond prison walls.
John F. Kutsko is Executive Director of Atla, the association of theological libraries and the producer of the leading research databases for the study of religion and theology. He leads the association's staff, over sees its scholarly research tools and member programs, works directly with its board of directors on nonprofit compliance, and directs fundraising and partnership work that sustains the organization financially.
From 2010 through 2022 he served as Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature, the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical study of the Bible. During his tenure there he led the consultation that established the International Qur'anic Studies Association — the first learned society for scholars of the Qur'an — oversaw the launch of Bible Odyssey and SBL Central, and directed the updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version. He also chaired the executive committee of the Council of Executive Officers at the American Council of Learned Societies and served on the advisory boards of the Religious Freedom Center and the Georgia 3RsProject.
Before SBL, Dr. Kutsko was an associate publisher at Abingdon Press /The United Methodist Publishing House, part of more than two decades of work in scholarly and religious publishing. He holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University and an M.A. from the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Kutsko brings to The Carrier Pigeon Post board deep experience in nonprofit leadership, scholarly publishing, and the stewardship of humanities institutions — precisely the competencies that support our work of putting the word into the hands of incarcerated readers.
Amir Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he teaches courses on world religions. His scholarly specialty is the study of Islam, with particular attention to contemporary Muslim societies in North America. He earned his B.Sc., M.A., and Ph.D. at the University of Toronto, which has also given him its highest award for alumni service.
Dr. Hussain served as President of the American Academy of Religion in2023, and from 2011 to 2015 he edited the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the field's premier scholarly journal. He sits on the editorial boards of four additional journals and was named a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities in 2008.
In 2016 he held a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California. Before joining Loyola Marymount, he taught at California State University, Northridge, from 1997 to 2005, earning awards there for both teaching and research; LMU students voted him Professor of the Year in 2008 and again in 2009. His books include Muslims and the Making of America (Baylor University Press, 2016) and Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God, and he is a co-editor of the widely used World Religions textbooks from Oxford University Press. He has published more than fifty book chapters and scholarly articles. His interests extend to religion and music, literature, film, and popular culture, and he has served as an advisor and on-camera contributor for a number of television documentary series.
Dr. Hussain brings to The Carrier Pigeon Post board a distinguished record of humanities scholarship, national academic leadership, and a lifelong commitment to interfaith understanding and to students.
Rev. Dr. Micah L. McCreary is the twelfth President of New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey, one of the two seminaries of the Reformed Church in America, a post he has held since 2017, when the seminary's board appointed him unanimously. He is at once pastor, professor, and psychologist:for sixteen years he and his wife, Rev. Jacqueline Madison-McCreary, pastored Spring Creek Baptist Church in Moseley, Virginia, while he served for twenty-one years as a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University and led McCreary and Madison Associates, a psychological and human-resources consulting firm he founded in Richmond and directed as President and CEO.
A native of Detroit, Dr. McCreary holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Michigan, a Master of Divinity from the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University, and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. His fellowships include the American Psychological Association Minority Fellowship, the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia Fellowship, and the American Council on Education Presidential Fellowship.
He is the author of "Trauma and Race: A Pathway to Wellbeing" (Fortress Press, 2023) and is widely sought as a preacher and teacher on trauma and race, on church hurt and suicidal ideation, and on the intersections of spirituality and psychology.
He also serves on the board of Salvation and Social Justice. Dr. McCreary brings to The Carrier Pigeon Post board the pastor's care, the psychologist's science, and the seminary president's institutional judgment — a national voice on trauma and healing whose life's work, like CPP's, rests on the conviction that no person is beyond restoration.
Advisory Experts for The Carrier Pigeon Post
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Marcia Alesan Dawkins (PhD University of Southern California, MA New York University) is a senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership, specializing in communication and futurism. Prior to joining CCL, she was an award-winning professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where students fondly referred to her as a “human catalyst.” She is the author of Eminem: The Real Slim Shady (Hip Hop in America) and Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity.
Mark Krancer is an award-winning photographer, author, and entrepreneur whose journey reflects both resilience and creativity. After overcoming the challenges of reentering society following a conviction, he rebuilt his life from the ground up, founding Kram Kran Photo in 2016 as the cornerstone of his artistic career. Today, Mark serves as the official photographer for numerous nonprofits, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), while also teaching photography and openly sharing his story of recovery, freedom, and sobriety. His work has earned national recognition, with a Pulitzer Prize nomination, multiple Scenic America contest wins, and two Florida Preservation Awards for outstanding Media and Communication.
Tanaine Jenkins is an award-winning Recidivism Strategist, Consultant, and State Organizer for REFORM Alliance, leading the charge to dismantle the Second Sentence faced by returning citizens. A TEDx speaker, best-selling author of From Prison to President, and founder of Second Sentence Awareness, Tanaine has transformed her lived experience into a catalyst for systemic change. Her leadership has earned her the Johnnie Barnett Harrison Award, the Florida Justice Center Advocate of the Year, and the 2025 Advocacy and Justice Champion Award. Featured in Forbes, The CW, and PBS, Tanaine continues to inspire and equip justice-impacted individuals to reclaim their narratives and build lives beyond barriers.
Amir Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, the Jesuit university in Los Angeles. His own specialization is the study of contemporary Muslim societies in North America. His academic degrees (BSc, MA, PhD) are all from the University of Toronto where he received a number of awards, including the university’s highest award for alumni service. He served as President of the American Academy of Religion in 2023, the world’s largest scholarly organization for the study of religion. He was an advisor for the television series The Story of God with Morgan Freeman, and appears regularly on Ancient Aliens, History’s Greatest Mysteries with Laurence Fishburne, Holy Marvels with Dennis Quaid, and The UnXplained with William Shatner. He is the author or editor of seven books and over 60 scholarly articles about religion.
John Kutsko is the Executive Director of Atla, a theological library association that is committed to advancing the study of religion and theology worldwide. John studied Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (PhD Harvard University, MA University of Michigan). John has worked in academic and religion publishing for three decades and cares deeply about religious literacy and education, the public understanding of religion, and religious freedom. He is contributing editor of The SBL Handbook of Style, author of Between Heaven and Earth, (SBL, 2000), and co-editor of The King James Version at 400. Among the articles he has written are “Compromise as a Biblical Value” in The Bible in Political Debate and “The Curious Case of the Christian Bible and the U.S. Constitution” in The Bible in American Life.
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