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The first college course I ever enrolled in was an English course.  I took it because it was a logical choice.  After all, every course in college requires some level of reading comprehension.  I thought that the course would be challenging because it was a college course, but I didn’t think that there would be areas of which I was unfamiliar.  I was wrong.

As my study guide and textbook arrived, I jumped right on in.  At once I was pushing through essays and reading assignments.  Writing has always come easy to me, so I thought I was made.  Then along came a citation issue.

The issue was that I didn’t know how to cite sources, effectively paraphrase, or even productively research.  I just never had to do this in high school.  It certainly didn’t help that I went to prison when I was a senior in high school.  Regardless, I didn’t graduate from high school and, thus, had obviously missed several of the important lessons.  Instead of graduating before I went to prison, I earned a GED in prison.*1

About six months ago a gentleman from my housing unit, here at FCI Petersburg, earned his GED.  He was very proud of this accomplishment — as was I — and wanted desperately to continue on with his studies.  The gentleman had heard that I wrote a book about prison education — Education Behind Bars: A Win-Win Strategy for Maximum Security — so he came to me to find information regarding correspondence programs open to inmates.  We discussed his interests, aspirations, and financial backing.

To my surprise, this man was interested in becoming a veterinary assistant/technician.  This surprised me because he honestly didn’t act or seem like someone who cared about animals; not that animal lovers look any certain way.  To tell you the truth, he’s one of the loud and obnoxious ones in my housing unit.  So, I was surprised in his interest in continuing his education.  Those who act the way he does typically are more focused on less productive habits in prison.  Needless to say, I was enthralled with his aspiration.

Many schools will profess a desire to educate incarcerated students.  To not do so would be almost unethical, alhough few schools will modify programs to make them more prisoner-friendly.  Hobe Sound Bible College is one school which is not only willing to go the extra mile for the incarcerated student, but has put their money where their mouth is.

Hobe Sound Bible College, founded in 1960, is a religious college out of Hobe Sound, Florida which offers courses in a correspondence methodology.  Accredited by the Association for Biblical Higher Education (ABHE), they are a respected Christian college even though they do not hold regional accreditation.

Hobe Sound Bible College did something which both shocked me and immediately won me to their cause.  They put their money where their mouth is.  They literally offer prisoner-students a discounted tuition rate of $75 per course; a $245 discount!  This places them at the bottom of the spectrum in tuition costs for college-level correspondence courses.

Many inmates write.  They write novels, plays, screenplays, short stories, etc.  Some want to be published.  Finding an agent is a daunting task for anyone, and especially so for someone in prison.  Here’s a suggestion:  why not act as your own agent?

Here’s how to do it:

In today’s world, commonplace wisdom states that you need a literary agent if you want to be published.  So authors spend lots of time sending out query letters and/or proposals to literary agents.  Sixty percent of agents don’t even read the queries, they just shoot back a standard rejection letter.  Another 38 percent of agents either have a stable of authors that is already full, or they specialize in a genre that is different from what you write.  Which means about two percent of all literary agents might be interested in taking on new authors. 

So what do you do?

Before coming to prison I had never used a typewriter.  I had seen them in movies, on TV, even my Dad’s office had one for filling out forms, but I had never used one.  This is because I’m 26 years old and for the past 15 to 20 years word processors have ruled the data processing field.

Sadly, this is not the case in America’s prisons.  Here at FCI Petersburg, a medium security federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia which has an inmate population of 1,835 inmates, there are a total of 9 typewriters, 3 of which are significantly in need of repair or replacement.  In order to operate any of the 6 fully-operable typewriters, an inmate must purchase required supplies.  This amounts to around $35 in initial supplies, plus an additional $7.75 per week in ribbon costs, too, for those who type as much as I do.

Outside of prison, $7.75 or even $35 is not a huge deal.  But when the inmate only makes $5.25 per month, it is a huge obstacle.  In fact, it can be cost prohibitive.  Thus enters the question of word processors for inmates.

One day when I was teaching my Writing and Publishing Adult Continuing Education class here at FCI Petersburg, I had a student lie to me.  It wasn’t a malicious lie and it didn’t do any real damage.  But it was a lie nonetheless and, as such, I didn’t like it one bit.

The Situation

We were discussing how advances (advance against royalties) work.  I was explaining that the traditional publisher typically offers an amount of money to an author before their book comes out.  I showed how this “signing bonus” is typically paid in several installments and how it must be earned or (paid back to the publisher) before any more money is paid to the author in the form of royalties.

During this discussion the student mentioned that he once dealt with an urban publisher who had attempted to rip him off by offering him $10,000 for a manuscript of his.  In industry parlance, this was for an “all rights” contract where he would be paid a single, flat fee for the title.  This would be an up-front fee and would result in no additional payments regardless of the book’s success or failure.

Sitting in my cell I can feel the floor shaking.  I can hear the banging.  I can see a man dancing on top of a table in a common area.  This is a typical afternoon in a federal prison; FCI Petersburg to be exact.

As I sit at my desk, which is in a cell which has a shut door, I work hard on an English paper.  Spread out on the desk before me are my college study guide, a textbook on writing by Joseph Trimmer, and a pad of paper with notes across it.  I mean business.  I aim to complete another lesson in my college correspondence course.

Yet, every few minutes my concentration is broken by another outburst which I can hear over my ear plugs and feel through the floor of my cell and my desk.  The shrieks and banging which produce vibrations in my desk and distract my concentration are here to stay.  And there is no one to stop the madness, for the guard assigned to the unit has left his post and is nowhere to be found.  (Note: The guards here at FCI Petersburg regularly either leave their posts or even join in with the yelling at the TVs.)