I just wanted to share that the 2024 PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology is now avaliable on Amazon. Included is my award winning piece "Courage" which starts on page 21. Thank you to all that have supported my writing journey so far.

I have been developing a deeply intimate relationship with the music of Gunship. For a while I had veered into the gloom drenched halls of Doom Metal. There I sat, head bowed to the slow drop C fuzz of heavy electric bass, each note an inevitable step towards the void through a fog of funereal sighs. "Yes, cruel world!" I moaned, too consumed with the uselessness of tears to weep, "I know that all is sound and fury (and 26 minute long songs about Edgar Allen Poe) and in the end it means nothing, nothing at all!"

I spent Christmas day watching a marathon of Anthony Bourdain specials. An imperfect, broken hero of mine. He took his own life and the world is poorer for it. I don't judge him for his final action, any more than I would judge any one person for any one action in the vast tapestry of their lives. That's what life is, you know.

12-10-25., 9:20 at night… Missing you all already. Life may not be fair, but we aren't under any obligation to help make it that way. All of my love and friendship to the Whitties that, in every conversation and every moment shared these last few months, brought light and solidarity to me in a very dark, very cold place. Especially to Kyle, Lilli, Sophia, Sebastian and Zack.

What's your favorite cartoon? Favorite cartoon? That would have to be "Home Movies". Loren Bouchard's early project about three kids and the films they make with the help of some strange friends and their VHS camcorder. Early appearance of H Jon Benjamin who voices Coach McGuirk, a criminally irresponsible soccer coach. It took a few episodes for it to grow on me, but now there isn't a cartoon I have seen before or since that makes me feel as good as one 15 minute episode of that show. Try it, let me know what you think at Roberthiraeth.com. 🙂

I started writing about all of my friends and brothers that I've lost over the last couple of years, just from this small three unit space. The list itself is too long, and I refuse to just put names into the ether without telling the world a little about each one. Alex was the latest. Three days ago. He lived in prison most of his young life.

What's something you believe everyone should know. That your life has meaning. That it's NOT some insignificant little nothing within the vastness of an unfathomable cosmos. Value isn't assigned to things that are common. Deep and unconditional love isn't valued because it happens every day to everyone all of the time. I saw a hummingbird in the garden the other day.

faith to believethere is goodnessis enoughfor tonight.

The sun has set.Behind mountains green and black slopes crisped with silver snow.Once mighty now the blue bows down,dies,decays.From its bones the gloaming glows bruised and bloody hued. It's a miracle, but they don't notice. Wrapped 'round a fire built high for warmth.Smokey musk stings eyes alight with flames whilelaughter rides the wind and winds through pines the…

This piece of writing placed second in the 2024 PEN America Prison Writing Awards. Courage I don't remember the Mexican kid's name anymore but I do remember his age which was 18. He looked young, younger than 18 although he carried himself like a man much older. Let me clarify, he was young and stupid and full of bad decisions but his stupidity was that of the young and his bad decisions were of that as well.

When the gulfs between you and everything else become absolute and the terrors of the inconsequential are unsheathed, silly little things. here is how it should be. how it once was. perhaps how it could be, could have been. When it ends will it be enough to have known what was possible? It will have to be It will have to be. silly little things This poem was published in the PEN America Zine - Verse Among Us

How do you celebrate holidays? I don't. Not anymore. When you are incarcerated, holidays aren't provided by a calendar. They are wrenched out of the jaws of a numbing monotony heavy with the potential for violence. Some people celebrate holidays when they happen. Many do not. Did Sisyphus get a birthday when he got to the top of his hill? Laughing, middle finger extended towards the unfeeling infinite, he just marched back on down that mountain.

"We're all born naked." This is a common phrase uttered by people of all stripes for a variety of reasons. It is certainly a common mantra for all nudists, some hippies, and all nude hippies. I understand the argument being made: that we come wide-eyed and naked into the world, and society clothes us in shame and skinny jeans (although not enough shame in the case of skinny jeans).

What book could you read over and over again? A book I could read again and again..? Ursula K Le Guin's "The Dispossessed". My favorite writer at the height of her powers. This book not only helped me better understand the flaws within my own anarchist philosophy (and therefore strengthening it) but is so beautifully written. Not just a book about an anarchist society, but a tale about love, alienation, friendship, duty, freedom, suffering, revolution, and the journeys that bring us far afield but bend, inexorably, towards home.

Daily writing prompt What's a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had? View all responses There's the obvious, supernatural abilities and the like, but to keep it grounded somewhat, I think the ability I want the most is the ability to feel safe. There were only the briefest moments in my life that I lived free from fear, and because of that, I've made one bad decision after another.

Who is the most confident person you know? I spent some time thinking about who the most confident person I know might be, then I spent some time wondering why I spent any time on it at all. I know a lot of people, almost all of them quite villainous, and although they are fascinating in their own right after so many years that archetype has become stale.

Are you superstitious? Am I superstitious? Sometimes. It's nice to believe that I have control over the events in my life I have no control over. It's probably not true, but when I watch Dr. Who I don't spend the whole time thinking about how everything in it that purports to be alien or future tech is just set pieces made of Styrofoam and spray painted different colors.

Where would you go on a shopping spree? I have no idea how to answer this. I mean, I know HOW to answer it, but I don't know where to start. The addict in me wants to say a pharmacy. 😛 I will resist this and choose instead to decline. Give me a hill inside the Kanza prairie in Kansas during an electrical storm.

What is the last thing you learned? What was the last thing you learned? I don't know about the last thing I learned…I mean it isn't interesting or important, at least in light of the last big piece of news I had. My friend Jasmine took her life. It's only one of eight we've lost this way in the last couple of years, but she was the one that really hurt.