Working with Jana Schroeder of the Ohio Criminal Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee, William Nichols learned about the Ohio State Penitentiary, the state's "supermax." After writing essays about poverty, violence, and torture, Nichols began to imagine an improbable escape that follows the trail of Lewis and Clark. That story became FLEEING OHIO. His YORK'S JOURNAL: A NOVEL (2005), tells the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the eyes of the only slave to make that famous journey.