What I'm Writing Now
I've been quiet on social media the last few months, but I have still been writing.
What a year 2022 was. We still don’t feel quite ‘settled’ yet, but we’re excited to be in South Dakota this year. A routine is starting to be established, the kids are sleeping better (usually), and I’ve been able to carve out time to start my Master’s degree.
Since 2017 I have been looking forward to going back to school for my Master’s and I’ve spent the last five years going back and forth on an MFA or an MLitt, not knowing for sure which direction was the best for me to go. I’ve landed on an MLitt in Creative Writing (the perfect combination, right?) after I finish my Master of Science in Criminal Justice.
I know, that surprised me, too. Maybe I need to back up a little bit and explain how I ended up here.
In 2017, I started my crime fiction series centered on my detective, Jack Johnson. What began as a short story has become a seven-book series. I was already interested in the criminal justice system, but my interest (and knowledge) was mostly centered on investigations. But in 2020, my older brother was incarcerated and for the month he was in custody my interest in the adjudication process and prison systems grew. I felt so unprepared. What happens next? What can we be doing? What should we be doing? What do his charges mean? How long will a trial take?
Unfortunately, we don’t get to know the answer to the last one. In November my brother died under suspicious circumstances and what was already devastatingly tragic also became horrendously crippling. As you may remember (if you were already a reader back then) I was eight months pregnant with our second baby. It wasn’t until February of 2021 that I started really searching for answers. I spent about a year contacting the prison, the DOJ, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the CIC, and the Institute of Forensic Science in San Juan. No one either had an answer for me or was willing to give me answers.
Through that year of research and runaround, I started to see serious flaws in the criminal justice system, particularly when it comes to prison conditions. What I thought was an appalling anomaly showed itself to be the norm. What my brother, my family had gone through happens all the time. And no one I had talked to yet seemed to care. I was told at one point that this is just how it is.
It was around February of 2022 when I realized that I needed to find someone in Puerto Rico who would care about prison conditions there as much as I did in order to get answers. But who? Who would care? Who would care and be able to do something about it? Even if that ‘something’ was passing me on to someone higher up?
A professor. A professor would care.
I researched universities in PR that had criminal justice/criminology departments. From there I made a list of professors who, through their bio, seemed like they might reply to me if I reached out. I started with Gary, who runs a blog and a podcast about justice issues. He replied within a week with the information that he had already passed me on to an executive director of a non-profit specializing in police brutality and an excellent attorney. I already followed the attorney (D) on Twitter, trying to learn about how the criminal justice system operated in PR specifically, so I was floored when a day or two later he reached out to get more information so that he could help. The executive director (M) called me within the week as well and we talked for over an hour on the phone.
From that point, I felt so much less alone in all of this. I had people on my side who cared and who could actually do something about this. M was able to put me in contact with the public defender who had represented Cody on his charges. This public defender was able to get a judge to court-order the prison to send me his medical records, which were all in Spanish.
In May, I started studying Spanish because I knew that I was going to need to know it semi-fluently at some point in the future. It’s slow going, but it felt good to get back into the habit of studying. And in June or July, I knew I was going to go to school for Criminal Justice. After talking with people in PR I understood that the only way things were going to change was if people like me spoke loudly and openly about what we had seen, experienced, and researched. That was the only way to prevent this from happening to more people. More families. But I didn’t want to rely on personal experience alone.
August is when I found the program I wanted and in September I applied and was accepted. On October 3rd I started my first class. I’m not ready to be 100% open and full-volumed yet, but I know that this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now. I spent all of 2021 telling Seth that I needed to do something tangible, but I couldn’t figure out how I could use my talents and passions to make a difference. Then it hit me—I could use my crime fiction series to shine a light on flaws in the criminal justice system, educate people on how it operates and how it could operate, and build a platform from which I could speak out on issues.
This feels daunting. I’m in over my head, definitely. But this is where I am supposed to be. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing.
You may have been to my website in the last two months and noticed a new ‘tab’ under ‘blog’ titled ‘criminal justice’. That’s where I’ll be releasing whole chapters of Jack Johnson novel(la)s, starting next Friday, January 13th. The first book will be released in 2023, but there aren’t 52 chapters so some weeks will have a blog post pertaining to what I’m learning in class or current issues in criminal justice. In order to ease into it, I decided to do a ten-blog post series on Criminal Evidence for Writers as a way to bridge what I’m learning in class to the creative projects I’m working on. (After this email I’ll be finishing the first post, you can look for it early this next week.)
I had toyed around with the idea of offering these books on a subscription, KindleVella, or some other paid platform to offset hosting and grad school costs but I instead opted to install ads on my website so that I didn’t have to lock these posts behind a paywall. I really appreciate you reading my blog posts even with ads on them, that helps me continue to do what I love (writing) without passing on the costs to you. You’ll notice on the bottom of the page for Criminal Justice I have a tip jar graphic with my venmo and paypal information. Please don’t feel like you have to pay to read my posts (ads!), the tip jar is just there for those readers who would like to buy me a coffee or express that a particular chapter or post was well-liked. I’ll enable comments on these posts and chapters because I would like to hear your feedback.
And I’d like to take this last little bit of space to let you know how much I appreciate you all. Thank you for reading my poems and stories. Thank you for telling me what you love and what needs work. Thank you for supporting my writing career by buying my books and telling your friends and family about me. I feel extremely grateful to you and well-loved by you.
Thank you,
Alexandria