Prologue to A Blog Cut Into Slices-Cillian Knight Unmasked
Shane Wright’s confession of love, jail, literary obsession, and survival in a small fisherman’s town.
Welcome!
What we have here is my first live and interactive (meaning I’ll definitely answer some of your burning questions) telling of my absolutely wild life after getting off of parole, and deciding to write my semi fictional book: A Man Cut Into Slices.
The story starts 2 years and 3 weeks ago from today: 8/11/25.
My parole was terminated-which entailed a single charge: Manslaughter.
Everything you read here, as well as my book, is 100% my own wording, with the exception of assistance from A.I. for my natural dyslexia with spelling and frequent punctuation corrections.
Since arriving back to Newport 11/11/23 I completely rolled with the goal to live the lifestyle I’d romanticized my entire adult life from the classic Tropic of Cancer By Henry Miller. We are separated by exactly 100 years and 85 days. And what I’ve done, is traded his penniless writers experience in Paris 1930s, for Newport 2020s.
There are wild connections from The Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon, to Sylvia Beach (the person), who ran Shakespeare and Company in Paris starting in 1920s — the famous bookstore that was the gathering spot for expatriate writers, artists, and poets like Joyce, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald.
The Sylvia Beach Hotel has officially closed its doors, my vision to connect with the devoted community of literature lovers, has had to evolve. I’m starting with no built-in audience, and I have no desire to pander to the masses. I want to gather artists in every form though — those hungry for a modern-day story brewed with meat & substance. Hearty stew that has been simmering for years. This dish isn’t merely ready for tasting; it’s ready to be devoured. So, Cillian Knight and I ask: did you bring your appetite?
I’ll tell you this — I am no master poet, no polished writer. My real apprenticeship began in a cell, with nothing but a dictionary and an inquisitive mind. It was there, within dense concrete walls and even denser stoned minds, that I found myself like Perseus: imprisoned first, then forced to cut through stone and silence, learning survival can be a matter of reflection, and that some monsters must be sliced into words before they can be faced.”
Perseus with the head of the Medusa, 1545/54. Bronze, Florence, Italy
Perseus was imprisoned before his great journey — Danaë, his mother, was locked away in a bronze chamber because her father feared a prophecy.
Perseus faced monsters — the most famous being Medusa. She couldn’t be looked at directly, or she’d turn you to stone.
Perseus carried a reflective shield — he never looked at Medusa head-on, but through reflection.
However, the tone I’ve adopted pairs naturally with telling a jailhouse story through prison poetry. And I’m sure that, over time, as I write these daily blog posts and unfold my Henry Miller Reincarnated story, Cillian Knight and I will discover a new voice that takes on a life of its own.
Here’s an outline of what’s to come:
-Short telling of the months following my release from parole that entailed venturing into the unknown.
-The story truly begins upon arrival to Newport Oregon (returning to where I lived in the time leading up to the crime)
-Then the six months living in the fisherman’s town with old friend. The project A Man Cut Into Slices clumsily begins.
-Moving into car fulltime. Working two jobs—one at The Sea Glass Bistro serving tables, the other as the last night auditor for The Sylvia Beach Hotel.
-The Sylvia Beach Hotel closes, the mental hardship as the darkness of winter consumes, dealing with a regular struggle to embrace the will to live.
Typing out an outline could never do justice to the story — or the stories — that are about to unfold. Rest assured, I won’t be offering you mere squiggly lines and syllables on a page. I’ll be bringing this tale to life with photographs, with video, with moments that add an entire new dimension to story telling.
I’m not telling the story of being on parole because it’s not the time, and in truth kind of simple. All I did was work semi high paying jobs that required social skills and networking, study hours of sports stats and relevant info to partially professionally bet on sports like UFC, NFL, and NBA through daily fantasy, work out, cook, play a game called League of Legends (which is as big as the NFL, in countries like South Korea), spend time with my girlfriend at the time, and of course hike and hang out with family.
My life is a living, breathing story just begging to be told. Once I got off parole, that little phone in my pocket—even without service—came out, would snap a picture or video, and slip back in faster than a sneeze. That’s why I think this whole thing is so darn entertaining: it’s not just my written word describing these experiences, but capturing the moment in time over and over again. Now I have a very large collection, one that separates me even further from the massive sea of entertainment available these days.
So without further ado, let us start this journey down the rabbit hole together.
“Psssst! Hey it’s Cillian Knight here! Shane’s off in the clouds right now so it’s a perfect time for me to tell you we’ve been working tirelessly on finishing A Man Cut Into Slices completely, and that if you are interested in assisting finically to get the book into print, and website fees, he’s got a pretty clever way for you to do such a warm gesture. There’s even a pretty sweet treat that is more than just good feels! So head over to https://buymeacoffee.com/shanewright to support a youngish man teeming with potential!”
