Dannie Martin wrote more than 50 essays that dealt with such issues as racism, inadequate health care, petty bureaucratic harassment, convict sex, prison guards good and bad, and disappearing folkways and unique convict characters. One of his essays criticized the regime of Lompoc (CA) penitentiary's warden. It so incensed prison authorities that they sent Martin to solitary confinement and then transferred him to a Federal prison in Phoenix. A major First Amendment court battle ensued, centering on the rights of prisoners to express themselves freely and publicly. The book contains almost all of Martin's published writings; comments by Peter Sussman, Martin's editor-collaborator and friend; and comments on First Amendment issues. Dannie Martin was paroled in 1992 to San Francisco and resumed his life as a freelance writer.