I love this little collection of letters and symbols. It’s been a part of my life for almost 6 years now. Eventually, I’m sure it’ll surface on some untatted expanse of my skin. It’s that special to me. I would do another book giveaway for anyone who can figure out what it signifies, but no one would be able to solve it. I doubt that even a trained CIA agent could crack the code . . .

In fact, if you downloaded Year of the Firefly or The Weight of Entanglement during this month’s eBook giveaway, you might have noticed this little dyslexic equation on the very bottom of the back side of the “Preview” page. It’s near the end. But if you missed it, you’re not alone. It took me over a month to spot it. And it’s my book.

It all started around New Year’s of 2019 when a redhead wandered into my orbit. Like most good things in my life, it was the novels that drew her in. She read Sticks & Stones and decided to reach out. Somewhere over the thousands of emails that were exchanged over the ensuing year and a half, we became extremely close. About as close as two people on opposite sides of the razor wire can be. (For a more detailed account of this, check out “Shonda Kerry,” an excerpt from Letters to the Universe, currently up on my Substack page.)

In addition to being beautiful, kind, and the best friend I’ve ever had, Shonda is smart, deliberate, thorough . . . So much so that when the files to my first novel, Consider the Dragonfly, became corrupted and the book appeared to be unsalvageable, she went in and saved it, learning the delicate art of interior formatting in the process. She has since expanded her skill set to include editing, cover design, and the intricacies of the independent publishing industry as well. My girl. ❤ For close to a decade, I longed for someone to care about these books as much as I do. I think Shonda actually cares more than I do. If that is possible. In the same way I agonize over just the right word, she can spend days deliberating over just the right typeset. I’m not sure how this level of care translates to eBooks because I’ve never actually seen an eBook, but I know that the physical books are beautiful. If you ever have the opportunity to hold one, see if you disagree . . .

But back to this little sign (>ij=) and the story behind it. Around the time Shonda was sorting out Consider the Dragonfly, she began referring to the book as =j= in her emails when notifying me of her progress. Kinda looks like a dragonfly, doesn’t it? Although my first four novels were already floating around the prison system—and there had even been a newspaper article about me in my hometown paper—we still tried to keep our messages about the books relatively cryptic. As long as the administration didn’t specifically say I had to stop writing, I could continue mailing my handwritten manuscripts home. While it was clear that I was a big fan of the dragonfly, Shonda was more of a firefly girl. (Apparently, calling them “lightning bugs” is a Southern thing.) At one point she was even considering getting a tattoo of the bioluminescent insect. I know this because she sent me a two-page overview of its legend and history. I’m not sure when the first cyberglyphic firefly appeared in the back and forth of our emails, but it looked sort of like this: >i< Or maybe this: >!< Can’t remember. All I know is that somewhere around the end of that first year, I started ending messages typing “=j= loves >i< 48”. Which, over time, she converted to a single symbol: >ij= The merging of the two into one, dragonfly and firefly in mid-flight.

Although Shonda has very little in common with the character Miranda McGuire—aside from hair color and intelligence—I named the book “Year of the Firefly” as acknowledgement of her arrival on the timeline of my own life. Like every other book that I’ve written since, she has been deeply involved in the post-production process. When I finally received an author’s copy in late 2020, I don’t know who was more excited, me or her. I was blown away by the crispness of the font, the Astral Pipeline imprint logo on the spine, the way Miranda Rights slanted across the bottom in dark ink, how professional the “Preview” page looked . . . I kept catching myself holding it like a proud father, thumbing through the pages lovingly. Remember, I’ve been in here for most of my life. And I’ll never have kids of my own. My books are my kids. My legacy. A thousand years from now they’ll still be around. Proof that I once lived and wrote here on Planet Earth. It was during one of these times, a good month after I received the book, that I stumbled upon something hidden at the end. On the back side of the “Preview” page was a little collection of symbols: >ij=

She never mentioned it. Just stashed it back there to let me find it myself. My Quiet Storm. My Solitary Girl. Shonda.

This series is the most challenging thing I’ve ever written. It took over 5 years, 3 books, and 220,000 words to get down. I’m happy to be done with it even though I will miss hanging out with the women in the story. Mothers, survivors, badasses, every one of them. But it’s finally time to move on. Not just from the story either. In real life too. Law of Momentum—the final book in the Miranda Rights trilogy—is the last novel I will write from a prison cell. Number 8 overall. My life’s work. I’m very proud of it. It will be available on Election Day. I’ll never forget the years I spent writing it. The different cells I was in and the cellmates I had. Or all the women, free and imprisoned, who contributed to the story. But mostly I’ll remember it as the baby I had with Shonda. A little redhead girl named Miranda, radiant with intelligence and unlimited possibility. Six years after that first letter, we are still going strong. Still committed to this journey, still quantumly entangled, still putting out these books. I figured I was overdue to tell the world about her.