Staying Sane: How to Stave Off Incarceration’s Concomitant Madness
1. Wake up at six thirty to the steady metallic beep of your sports watch. Seriously;…
Tomas Keen 310445
Washington Corrections Center
PO Box 900
Shelton, WA 98584
Tomas Keen is a model of personal transformation. He entered prison for the second time at 21 years old, and quickly learned that “violence, apathy, repeat” are the first and most frequent words in prison’s survival guide. After five wasted years, and upon learning of (big surprise) shady conduct by prosecutors in his case, he found himself in front of a desktop PC searching the depths of LexisNexis. Although his legal case died on the commissioner’s desk in the Washington Supreme Court–leaving him to finish a 20-year sentence–he is now a jailhouse lawyer with aspirations to attend law school after his release. While he waits for freedom, he strives daily to advance his qualities as a snoot by learning from the styles of great contemporary writers such as Bryan Garner and David Foster Wallace. Tomas knows that words are the weapons of wise men–and when the time comes he hopes to have the right ones.