Meet Paul Brown, a man living while waiting to die. He has been on North Carolina’s death row since 2000, awaiting an execution that may never come. He makes no excuses for his crime, and he doesn’t lament his punishment. He began writing a few years ago simply to answer the question: How do I make something of the life I have left?

His essays offer a rare window into death row, one of the most isolated places on earth. His stories offer no simple conclusions; they are the record of a complicated and broken life. Yet, they speak poignantly to what it means to be human.