Shaun Attwood / Gavin Knight

The above poster is for the Stoke Newington literary festival where SHAUN ATTWOOD and GAVIN KNIGHT will be in attendance. Shaun's images where taken from previous compositions before it was worked out how Gavin's side of things would fit in. Gavin's angle is urban thug culture, like dogs, guns, drugs and policemen etc. To see the final version, visit the link below and click to enlarge.

http://jonsjailjournal.blogspot.com/2011/05/upcoming-event-in-stoke-newington-with.html

Both the two school boys and Shaun on the left here were individually cut from small low-resolution photographs. The subtle glow around each of them combined with the cloudy backdrop represents daylight from the perils of incarceration; or a happy ending, if you prefer. The washy reflection business on the right as Shaun talks to the young lad in prison clobber proved to be a particularly smart effect. Sheriff Joe looks out of place on a Union Jack however; the flags need swapping around.

Above is a variant cover of Shaun's e-book, featuring violent jail-house fights to the death. T-Bone is a big, big character with a big, big heart, like me. Available on the Amazon link below.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/T-Bone-Jons-Jail-Journal-ebook/dp/B004V4AHL8

Sheriff Joe is best known for making his prisoners wear pink and feeding them on dead rat stew. Click on the shaun attwood tag underneath for more info, including interview here at Donnie's Dustbin.

Shaun is on the radio and TV and in schools, so best of luck. Keep fighting das good fight!

WIDNES TILL I DIE

Waterstones Flyers

Stephen Gerard-Hayden & Shaun Attwood of Widnes.

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Distributed 40 short stories today in Waterstones. SNOW QUEEN & THE PRINCESS (for picture please click link below) is aimed at teenagers and for it to be read by both young girls and boys alike is a delight. It is the second ‘fantasy’ story of Blob of Glob and compared to the psychological, horror, or comedy stuff, it bridges the age gap and is accepted more readily. Slipping into a brief make-believe world of Kings, Queens and Dragons is simply brilliant! stay tuned people!

http://piebald77.blogspot.com/2010/11/snow-queen-and-prncess.html

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Details about another princess story below

http://piebald77.blogspot.com/2010/06/lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.html

Shaun Attwood Interview

HARD TIME, by Shaun Attwood

Born in Widnes. Educated at Liverpool University. Stockbroker in the US. Rave organiser in the US. Sent to the toughest jail in the US....Arizona’s Maricopa Jail is run by the notorious Sherriff Joe Arpaio, who feeds his prisoners on 30 cents a day. He openly brags about feeding the dogs on 60 cents a day because the dogs “are working for a living and haven’t committed any crimes”. He makes the prisoners wear pink underwear and bee-stripe coveralls in chain gangs. Some of them live in tents. The illegal conditions include infested cells where the cockroaches crawl all over you in sweltering heat and a bloodlike carroty slop for dinner known as “red death” in which the origins of the meat content are questionable, to say the least.

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It’s all about race and gangs. The Aryan Brotherhood, Blacks, Mexicans and alike will kill-on-sight (KOS) for an initiation tattoo and don’t expect the guards to rush to your rescue, because they are known for murdering inmates too. Shaun Attwood exposed the truth by smuggling out his diary extracts written with a golf pencil sharpened on the wall and having his family upload it to the web, creating jonsjailjournal.com to international acclaim. HARD TIME is his first book, and is now available on Amazon.

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Question 1

I like your choice of understated sports cars such as the Toyota Supra and twin turbo Mazda RX7. What would your ideal vehicle be at the moment?

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S.A

My ideal vehicle at the moment is my old Ford Fiesta, which gets me to the schools I do my talks to and back. Supposedly, Mazda is designing a new RX7 for 2011.

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Question 2

Doing bulk deals of quality Ecstasy on foreign soil must have been exciting at the time. What you were doing is worlds apart, in my view, from the modern climate of nasty legal high shipments, or shady crack and smack transactions. If you were a judge, would you show sympathy to the raver?

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S.A

If I were a judge in America I would not be able to show much sympathy due to the statutory sentencing framework. Historically, judges have been more lenient in the UK, but unfortunately we are adopting more US legal practices.

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Question 3

Reading about how you were living on the odd Snickers made me crave Snickers. Do you still munch Snickers, are you totally revolted by Snickers, or can you take ‘em or leave ‘em?

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S.A

As soon as I got out of prison, I stopped eating some of the items that had sustained me throughout my incarceration. Snickers, peanut butter, milk...

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Question 4

Did the infamous Sherriff Joe Arpaio show his face much about the jail?
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S.A

Not often. When he did, he was surrounded by his own personal "goon squad" - armed bodyguards in shankproof armour. The inmates would hurl abuse at him from their cells - something you never see on his carefully-staged jail documentaries.

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Question 5

I can’t imagine your low points in Joe’s Hole when looking at the prospect of life imprisonment. I know you meditated in yoga positions by visualising triangles around your body and imagining your spine as a shaft of light (or something like that), but did you ever actually pray directly to God?
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S.A

I regularly attended the church services, where we all prayed and sang together. The best services were hosted by Jumping Bill!

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Question 6

Has surviving on rations of spoiled food increased your appetite for supermarket treats/fast food/takeaways, or has it instilled in you a discipline to be more rigorous with your diet now?
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S.A

After the "red death" jail slop with occasional dead rats in it, I am still a yoga practicing vegetarian.

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Question 7

Has been exposed to so much violence, like heads getting cracked like coconuts on the floor, for example, edged you towards a more pacifist standpoint?
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S.A

Yes.

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Question 8

Who is the character in Hard Time you would least like to share a hotel room with, and why?
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S.A

Someone like Bullet, a neo Nazi and a murderer, who wanted to kidnap his prosecutor, torture her with a blow torch, and murder her.

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Question 9

What is the most unorthodox object, or largest quantity of contraband/merchandise, you were ever aware of someone unpacking from their ass (keystering)?
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S.A

The mules prided themselves on how much they could "keyster" (pack in their behinds). Some of them bragged that they could store four "quarter roll" packages without them peeking out during the strip searches. A quarter roll refers to something the size of $10 worth of 25 cent coins placed one on top of the other.

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Question 10

After you have completed the English Shaun trilogy with the upcoming prequel and sequel to Hard Time, do you see yourself staying in the writing business with any other works?
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S.A

I'd like to write the individual stories of some of the prisoners featured at my blog like Wild Man, Two Tonys, T-Bone, Frankie...

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Questions by Andrew Donegan, who read with Shaun at the Royal Festival Hall in London 2009.

Shaun Attwood's HARD TIME

This book is an account of the 26 months Shaun Attwood spent in the jail system with the highest rate of death in America. The jail is in Phoenix, Arizona, and run by the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It begins with a SWAT team knocking Shaun’s door down, and his arrest for heading an organisation that threw raves and distributed club drugs. Initially, Shaun goes into shock as he’s submerged into a nightmarish world of gang violence, insect-infested cells and food unfit for animals. But with the love and support of his family and fiancée, Claudia, he slowly adapts.

Other prisoners Shaun meets on his journey tell their stories. His large and fearless friend since childhood, Wild Man, pops up all over the place with his unique brand of chaos. Shaun’s situation devastates his loved ones, and his mother has a nervous breakdown. The prosecutor and Detective Reid are out to get Shaun a life sentence, and the legal developments cause many emotional ups and downs.

Over time, Shaun tries to avoid getting smashed by forming various alliances, including with the Italian Mafia and the independent tough guy, Joe. Shaun increasingly uses jail time for learning and introspection. He takes up yoga, and ponders the big questions in philosophy. The letters he writes home, which make his family both laugh and cry, tell such a graphic tale that his parents encourage him to write more in order to document his incarceration.

Towards the end of his stay and with the help of his family, he starts the blog, Jon’s Jail Journal, to expose the conditions and human rights violations. The book ends with his family flying over from England for a sentencing hearing that has everyone on the verge of mental collapse.

Shaun’s jail memoir is slated for September-October 2010 publication in the UK.

Shaun’s award-nominated blog, jonsjailjournal.com, big in the U.S, has given a great many number of prisoners a voice, whose stories otherwise would have remained unheard. Mentored by Koestler, and publicly speaking in schools and prisons, this inspiring Widnesian continues to head a major movement.