Letters To Female Inmates: Maeghan Rice #265430

May. 17, 2012

By Vince Veneziani info

His first book, The Greatest Trades of All Time: Top Traders Making Big Profits from the Crash of 1929 to Today, ...

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MeetAnInmate.com
This is 100% real. Each morning, I compose a letter to an inmate in
prison in Microsoft Word, print it, sign it, and mail it out with my
return address. The letters are part niceties, part macabre humor. I
only send female inmates notes, because A) they’re hot chicks and B)
they’re less likely to kill me when they get out. It’s been fun thus far
and I’m really looking forward to inmates’ responses. Here’s my second
letter.

TO: Maeghan Rice #265430
PO Box 3300
Goodyear, AZ. 85395
May 17th, 2012

How are you? I hope things are fine. I noticed you are in prison until the year 2020 and were born in 1991. That is a shame to hear. A young mind is a terrible thing to waste. I too know the pains of getting in with the wrong crowd in my youth, only to have it backfire. You seem motivated to change though and I hope that’s the path you’re taking at the moment.

In your profile, you say that you smoke. How do you smoke in prison? I thought that they banned cigarettes in correctional facilities but I could be wrong. Obviously, you would know better than I would. What do you do for fun to pass the time? Do you like to read? If so, what kinds of books?

I feel like if I were in prison, I would work out a lot. Like, a whole lot. If I didn’t have an amazing set of abs and biceps, there’d really be no excuse I could pull out. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I hope after you get out, you finish your education and pursue a degree of some sort. If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?

Best,
-V TC mark

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This post originally appeared on Jailbird Letters.

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  • Erin

    It would have been interesting (maybe) if you had elaborated on why you do this and what you get out of it and what that says about you, but as it’s just a 4-paragraph letter with no reason for why you’re doing it, it manages to be creepy AND boring.

  • Guest

    I hope that this is a joke and that you are not actually sending these. This is the most condescending, insensitive, disgusting idea/post I have ever read. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

      Go to the about page for his tumblr. 

      • Lily

        what’s his tumblr?

      • http://christophermluna.com Christopher Michael Luna

        There’s a link to it at the bottom of the article. Jailbird Letters. It basically says the same thing that the italicized text at the top of the article says, though.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

        Except for this critical part: “I thought it’d be fucking hilarious to send these inmates letters that are part niceties, part macabre humor. I don’t want to send men letters because A) they’re not hot chicks and B) they’ll probably kill me when they get out.”

      • Erin

         Oh wow, the letters on his Tumblr are even worse.

    • DCDenise

      Why? Please tell me why!!!  What am I missing?

    • http://christophermluna.com Christopher Michael Luna

      For those interested, if you do an Amazon search for his name, his book comes up. It only has six positive reviews. You could take five minutes and give it a negative one, and probably have a significant impact on the overall rating. I’m pretty sure that overall rating has a fairly significant impact on book sales.

  • Lolol

    somehow i see this whole thing ending very badly for you

  • Anonymous

    I think this letter makes them more likely to kill you, not less.

  • Guest

    You are such a fucking douchebag. 

  • Fnkjd

    is that girl ok with her picture being on this website?

  • Guest

    I am legit excited if there are more updates on the responses. 

  • KML

    WHAT  THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, THOUGHT CATALOG? WHAT THE FUCK? This is so messed up. Someone I used to be very, very close to is in prison right now. I REALLY don’t think that person would enjoy receiving a letter like this, no matter if they are male or female. This is incredibly offensive on so many levels.    

  • http://christophermluna.com Christopher Michael Luna

    Let’s say he’s not sending these, and he’s being ironic and self-deprecating (somehow) about the whole thing.

    Still stupid. Still offensive. Still not funny in the least.

    • DCDenise

      Wow!  How can so much hate come about by something so vanilla? How is it offensive? What’s stupid?  I don’t think it was intended to be funny. Why would he lie about sending letters to someone in prison? People do it all the time. I hope all of you apply this kind of enthusiasm about things that really matter.

      • http://christophermluna.com Christopher Michael Luna

        Assuming that you actually don’t see what’s wrong here:

        Is it offensive to write letters to inmates? No.

        Is it offensive for this person to write this letter to an inmate and then post that letter, along with a picture of the inmate to a blog, ostensibly for the laughs? Yes.

        Why?

        The author of the letter brackets the entire thing with the idea that he’s writing these letters because these people are “hot chicks” and jokes about how inmates are likely to “kill him” for writing such letters; but female inmates less so than males. This acknowledges, at bare minimum, that the author of these letters sees how they could be condescending, antagonistic, etc.

        Specific places where this letter is condescending:

        “You seem motivated to change though and I hope that’s the path you’re taking at the moment.”

        “Anyway, I hope after you get out, you finish your education and pursue a degree of some sort.”

        Specific places where this letter is cruelly mocking (by emphasizing the inmate’s lack of freedom and the author’s freedom and comfort):

        “I noticed you are in prison until the year 2020 and were born in 1991. That is a shame to hear. A young mind is a terrible thing to waste. I too know the pains of getting in with the wrong crowd in my youth, only to have it backfire.”

        “How do you smoke in prison? I thought that they banned cigarettes in correctional facilities but I could be wrong. Obviously, you would know better than I would.”

        “I feel like if I were in prison, I would work out a lot. Like, a whole lot.”

        “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?”

        Now, I don’t know. Maybe this woman wants to talk about “any job in the world” she could have. Or maybe that would be a difficult topic in a letter between someone who is spending 29 years in prison. Etc. Etc. Etc.

  • Joe

    I have no problems with this other than the way that it sounds like the annoying incessant thoughts and questions of my 4 year old nephew. Seriously, get it together. And “they less likely to kill me”?? What, are you a redneck (would explain a lot)? THEY’RE less likely.

    • mrb

      The irony is that a ‘hot prison chick’ is probably not way less likely to kill him. Vince sounds like kind of an asshole, there’s got to be at least one of these ladies who would do him in.

  • Lourenco

    it would be funny if you knew how to.

  • Guest

    This is the fucking dumbest thing I have ever seen on this website/in general. Way to lower your standards, thought catalog.

  • 123

    Dear V,

    Thank you for sending me your letter. It’s very sweet of you. I’m doing okay. I
    never thought my life would actually become this bad. How are your parents? Do
    they still spoil you to death? I’m so jealous that I didn’t grow up in the same
    home that you did. Haha. Creepy man. Where did you read that I smoke? Anyways, I hope your sheltered life brings you many more boring and cliche experiences. Maybe one day we can meet up to chat about life and the unexpected and terrible experiences we’ve been in– oh wait. You’re a trader and writer on markets? What can you tell me about life?

     

    Maeghan

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=532223255 Nicolle Fieldsend

    I agree with many other commenters, these letters are just horrible. Not entertaining in the slightest. 

  • Guest

    Tagged: prision…not quite, buddy

  • http://www.facebook.com/brendan.s.walters Brendan Walters

    On occasion, writing can be incendiary in a good way.  This is not one of those occasions.  

    This article is not fashionably edgy –  it is, in fact, completely devoid of any redeeming qualities.

    I believe it would be a great benefit to this website if this article were pulled and forgotten about, forever.

    • http://www.facebook.com/brendan.s.walters Brendan Walters

      Or perhaps keep it here.  It seems to be the source of a profound hate-filled inspiration among TC readers, and frankly it is resulting in some thorough and entertaining critiques.

      That was your intention all along!  Sneaky V.

  • Guest

    and the letter is boring…

  • http://twitter.com/sodiumsepia Rick

    If you’re trying to make some sort of profound statement on gender dynamics or the obliviousness of  the privileged, you failed miserably at being insightful.

    If you’re trying to be funny, just stop. You aren’t funny. Not even a little.

    If you’re really this shallow, well, you deserve what you get shopping for a lay in prison.

    No matter what your intent was, I appreciate you affirming my prejudice that finance cultivates the most arrogant facsimiles of humans ever to blight the earth with their wretched soulless carcasses.

  • joe

    Dear Thought Catalog editors,

    Please stop posting these letters from Vince Veneziani. They come across as patronizing and offensive to these women in prison. If you do want to allow him to keep posting them, I think TC readers deserve a more detailed explanation from Vince as to why he does this.

    • Miss.N

      He does it for the kicks, just like he says at the top, a colleague and he would laugh about the site these profiles are posted on. Sick thrills.

  • Mike

    Thanks to the author for the early morning chuckle!! Also, to all the spiteful commenters, please feel free to write a better story and post it to the site.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

      Some of us have. Thanks, man. 

      • Guest

        *all of them have

  • Susie

    I feel like I just took the express train to Creeptown. It’s too early in the day to be this skeeved out. 

  • jmbaker

    I would rather read these letters if Ryan wrote them…now I bet HE could make them funny.

  • KalynS

    TC, TC, TC… I took my sweet time when it comes to visiting your website again after reading the last prison letter article. The so called, ‘part niceties, part humor’ letter was offensive, condescending, and more cruel than anything. Finally visit TC again this morning and gee.. what do we have? Yet another prison letter. Whom ever is making the decision at TC to allow these to be posted should reconsider their sense of humor, or simply consider what kind of human being would be so blatantly rude to another person IN PRISON VIA LETTER. Where is the THOUGHT in these “articles”?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002190548103 Tim McEown

    If, and I say if… this is a subtle jab at the woman who write to and subsequently get married to death row inmates (and in some cases get impregnated by) then it’s slightly genius. And watch Herzog’s ”Into the Abyss” to get a flavor of how monumentally fucked-up that is. If it’s not then…meh.

  • Jessica

    who is approving these stupid letters?

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