Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2024
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Censorship is Alive and Well in Virginia
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In Virginia, prison inmates do not have Internet. I am on my seventeenth year as a prisoner of the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC), so I have gone over sixteen years without Internet. I have “email,” sort of, through a company called JPay. Each email costs me 25¢ and it costs the same for people to write to me. It can take a week to get to the recipient!
In my institutional job I make a princely sum of $ 32.40 a month! Just over a dollar a day. That would have been good pay in the 1860s! It’s less than I made in my first high school summer job back in the 1960s!
As most of you already know, I’m a professional photographer/writer. I can say that I am a professional because from the mid-1970s I’ve been published in a number of magazines and newspapers, with over 1,000 magazine articles to my credit. Since 1986 I’ve authored/coauthored/ghosted more than two dozen books. My books and articles have been published in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Serbian, etc. I’ve written for several websites and this blog. I’ve worked as an editor of magazines and books, and as a fact checking consultant for National Geographic Books and Eastman Kodak Company.
Until 2007 I made a very good living from my writing and photography. My capsule biography was included in ‘Who’s Who in the World’ and in ‘American Artists’ since 1981. I write under Bob Shell and my main pseudonym, Edward Lee.
In 2003 my comfortable life was destroyed by a false arrest for a crime that never occurred. I wasn’t tried and convicted until 2007. The Innocence Project has taken my case, but it’s slow going because they have so many cases.
I’ve continued writing from prison, contributing op-ed articles for The Roanoke Star newspaper and articles about dinosaurs for Prehistoric Times magazine, and in 2019 I self-published the book ‘Cosmic Dance,’ which has sold reasonably well worldwide via Amazon despite having no promotional budget. Like most books, sales dropped off after the initial surge, and I only sell one or two a month now.
Most of my writing prior to my imprisonment had been nonfiction. In 2021 I began working on my first novel, ‘The Adventure of the Abducted Actress,’ a genre detective story featuring the Harley Stone Detective Agency (HSDA). I invented the HSDA and most of its cast of unusual characters in 1973. A few short stories I wrote about the HSDA were published in limited-circulation “fanzines.”
This first HSDA novel was completed in September of 2023 and sent to the company that assembled my first self-published book. In early November they mailed me a bound author’s proof. I didn’t get it. In mid-November I was transferred to a different prison.
When the proof never came, the company emailed the proof to my attorney as a PDF file. He had it printed and sent a printout of the proof to me as legal mail because we cannot receive PDF files. On arrival that proof was read and confiscated. (Violating attorney-client confidentiality as well as VDOC operating procedure.) Then in August of this year the bound proof mailed last November finally showed up here. But it was immediately confiscated.
To add insult to injury, that proof had been sent to the VDOC’s Publication Review Committee. They’d put it on their Disapproved Publications Listing. (I am in good company. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s latest book is on there.)
The Disapproved Publications Listing contains hundreds of books and magazine. The very existence of the Publication Review Committee and Disapproved Publications Listing are unconstitutional censorship.
Yes, my book has sex scenes, but there is nothing in my book beyond what’s in dozens of books in the institutional library here.
The librarian said if he had to remove every book with scenes like mine, he’d empty out the library.
I have argued until I’m blue in the face that an unpublished manuscript is not a publication by their own definition (An item that can be purchased from a vendor or subscribed to). They have given me nonsense responses to my grievances, even claiming that the book had been for sale since 2019! It is not on sale anywhere because it has not been published due to their interference.
I will not allow the book to be published until I have had a chance to correct the proof, so, by refusing to give me my author’s proof, the VDOC has blocked me from publishing my book. I am losing money every day the book is not for sale.
The Grievance Coordinator says I must take the matter into court. I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to push this case. I need help! If anyone reading this knows of an organization or group that would help me defend my constitutional rights, please let me know.
Article One, Section Twelve, of the Virginia Constitution says “Any citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects.” I may be in prison, but I am still a citizen! ?
The VDOC is violating my constitutional rights under the Virginia Constitution and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I haven’t joined any authors’ organizations because my institutional job pays me so little. It barely covers essentials at our grossly inflated commissary prices.
I hope someone can offer me help or direct me to someone who will help.
Thank you!
Mail address:
Robert E. L. Shell # 1201280
Dillwyn Correctional Center
P. O. Box 670
Dillwyn, VA 23936-0670
Mail address for legal mail:
Robert E. L. Shell # 1201280
Dillwyn Correctional Center
C/O: VDOC Centralized Mail Distribution Unit
3521 Woods Way
State Farm, VA 23160
You can email me by signing up at http://jpay.comusing my name, Robert Shell and state ID number, 1201280
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author, former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine and veteran contributor to this blog. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 17th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia.
On September 16, 2024 Shell’s release date got moved up six years due to new “mixed charges” law to February 2, 2030. It was 2036.
To read additional articles by Bob Shell link here: https://tonyward.com/bob-shell-oklahoma-youre-not-ok/