Coping in the margins

Four young men file into the classroom of the Skagit County Juvenile Detention center across the way from the county court house in Mount Vernon on a Wednesday after Christmas.

Matt Malyon, a chaplain with the jail and juvenile detention center through Tierra Nueva and creator of the Underground Writing program, sets up his handouts on tables. The four teens in bright orange sweatshirts and sweatpants pull out black notebooks with Underground Writing stickers on the front brought in by a young female guard.

Malyon inquires about Christ-mas in the facility for the teens who joke about how full...