Phoenix Uprising

Getting released and getting free are two different things.

At twelve, Danielle Holmes entered the system. At fifteen, she was locked up. At twenty-five, she was in prison. In her thirties, she walked into a domestic violence shelter barefoot, with nothing left.

Phoenix Uprising is the story of what came next: a scholarship, a state line, a master's degree, a home of her own, and a hard fall from the top of a career she built from nothing. Across fifteen chapters, each opening with a poem or piece she wrote at the time, it traces how the skills that keep a person alive become the skills that lead.

It is also a practical guide for anyone still inside a system:

• What to say at intake
• How to file a grievance
• How to build an exit plan
• How to find the people who will help

And it is written for the people on the other side of the desk: the caseworkers, officers, counselors, and board members whose decisions shape what the system feels like from the inside.

Part memoir, part field guide, Phoenix Uprising is a book about burning down what held you back, and rising anyway.

About the author

Danielle Holmes, MPA, is a Boulder, Colorado, consultant, educator, and author. She has navigated the juvenile and adult justice systems, housing instability, and domestic violence, and went on to earn a BA from MSU Denver and a Master of Public Administration from the University of Colorado Denver. She has managed an $8 million state grant portfolio, directed shelter and navigation services, and taught criminal justice at the college level. Phoenix Uprising is her first book.