How to use this Page

Another one of Glenn Langohr's stunning memoirs--a brave, unflinching account of life in prison. Prison Riot is a true crime memoir where BJ, a young and battle tested inmate serving time on drug charges, gets caught up in a Mexican gang war over gangland tattoos. The prison explodes into chaos as each building erupts in deadly violence. For B.J, the war isn't over when he and over a hundred inmates get housed in solitary confinement, it's just beginning. For getting involved, he's labeled a southern Mexican gangster. Glenn Langohr's other books include: Roll Call, Upon Release, Race Riot, Lock Up Diaries, Gladiator and Underdog.

I've been quiet on the blog recently, for several reasons. Reason the first: I was busy being a stage mom. Both my kids were in plays the same week. Son played the head of the Perkins Institute for the Blind in his school's incredible production of The Miracle Worker.



In his morning suit,he looked like a student at Eton. Meanwhile, the same week (!) daughter was Madame De La Grande Bouche (I'm not going to say type casting but...) in her school's equally incredible production of Beauty and the Beast:




I was so proud of both of them, but exhausted from coordinating the rehearsal schedules. Thought I could relax and then realized that Monday was Passover and my entire family was coming to my house for the seder. Had a small oven fire whilst roasting the shank bone and the egg but managed to avoid burning the house down. Also managed to avoid burning the house down a few days later when I put a pot of eggs on the stove to hard boil because I was so sick of eating matzo and then went down to my study to write and forgot about them. I heard a noise that sounded like something falling off the counter and dimly thought maybe I should investigate, but had just had a great idea for my WIP so I ignored. The second time, I did go investigate and it turned out the water had boiled away and it was a major EGGSPLOSION all over the kitchen, scaring the #@$% out of the the dog. Took a few days for the burning smell to go away.

On Friday I finally had surgery for the tennis elbow that has been plaguing me since last summer and hasn't been cured despite two rounds of physio and endless icing and wearing of torture devices.
What's weird is that my right hand has swollen up like crazy:



I feel like I'm typing with one normal hand and a hand of sausages. But typing I am. I'm 22K words into my new book. It's a strange mess of a first draft, but I'm excited about the themes that are developing as I write. It started as a spark about a WASPY kid from Darien being haunted by a 70 year old Yiddish speaking ghost, so there was the obvious theme of anti-Semitism. But as I'm writing, things are coming from the mouth of the ghost that I heard when I was growing up - statements about race, for instance. Even though I don't think I'm a prejudiced person, it's forcing me to confront how these messages might affect my behavior in unconscious ways that might be hurtful to others.

Next week, I'm meeting with some kids who are minority students at a private school nearby, to listen to them talk about their experiences, as part of my research for the book. When we lived in England, my son was the only Jewish child in his school. I was once the only American in my school. I've got those feelings down. But I've never been a person of color in a predominantly white school. While I'm sure some of the "otherness" feelings are similar, there are going to be situations and emotions that are different.

There's been a lot of discussion about multiculturalism and diversity in books recently, and I read one blog post, I can't remember where, which seemed to be saying that white authors shouldn't write about the experiences of people of color. I read that when I was already 10K words into this novel, and had already started to make arrangements to try to talk to t