Sing Soft, Sing Loud is an autobiographical novel based on the author's experiences in jails and prison. This book, first published by Atheneum in hard cover in 1989, has become a classic of prison literature. It explores the lives of women felons--who they are, and how they survive the soul-killing realities of jails and prison. Patricia McConnel's writing is unflinching. She uses fiction to illuminate the stark realities of women who live The Life . Sing Soft, Sing Loud allows us to know these women through their own eyes and with meticulously rendered voices, the screws who run their lives, their fellow inmates, and their men, with an intimacy that no sociological or journalistic account can ever reveal.