THE MIKE ENEMIGO STORY: HOW ONE PRISONER IS CHANGING THE GAME, ONE BOOK AT A TIMEBy Seth Ferranti“If a person has done even a couple of years in prison and possess even the most basic means to obtain literature, there is a 99 percent chance that they’ve heard about Mike Enemigo and The Cell Block,” says Damaneh Abdolah, who plans to produce a podcast and documentary on Mike’s book Conspiracy Theory. But, make no mistake about it, things were not always this way. “Getting to this point has been a very long and arduous process,” says Mike about his journey to becoming America’s #1 incarcerated author. “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done from inside my prison cell. No Internet, computer, phone, text, e-mail or other fancy, helpful devices. Just a few pennies for a budget, and a bunch of ink pens, paper, stamps, envelopes, coffee, adversity, failures, determination, dedication, resilience, creativity and hard work. Oh, and a lot of time. In fact, several years.”![]() ![]() Welcome to...The Cell BlockIn 2010, while in the hole, Mike decided it was time to redirect his efforts from that of the rap game to the book game. He’d been flirting with the idea for nearly two years already, so when he was given his property in the hole, he made sure to grab the English Grammar for Dummies book he’d bought for this very reason – so he could tighten up his grammar game. “I was always creative ‘cause I’d been writin’ raps. But writin’ raps and writin’ books is a whole different game. I knew if I was gonna do this, I needed to learn to write properly, and I had to master it,” he says. “So I began studying English Grammar for Dummies, while also working on my first book, which was Surviving Prison.” (This book wouldn’t be published until 2018.) Eventually Mike got out of the hole, where he was able to buy a typewriter and other supplies, and he began typing the books he’d written by hand, as well as figuring out how he was going to publish them, under the new publishing company he was building, The Cell Block, which he planned to run just like a record label. “When first trying to figure out how I was going to publish my books, I had no idea what I was gonna do,” he says. “My people were taking the Directory [The BEST Resource Directory for Prisoners] to Kinkos, trying to have it printed up. I think it cost us around $17 to have one copy printed and bound with one of those plastic strips. And with the leading directory at the time priced at $18, there was no way we were going to be able to sell ours at a profit,” he explains. “But one thing I knew for sure, I wasn’t gonna quit or give up. So I kept reading everything I could find, and eventually I saw something about CreateSpace. This was a game-changer for me.”![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() To learn more about Mike Enemigo and The Cell Block, visit thecellblock.net, where you can also subscribe to the Official Blog of The Cell Block. And be sure to follow Mike on IG @mikeenemigo and FB/thecellblockofficial. “This author has a unique voice and his versatile pen is refreshing. Mike has my stamp of approval.” – JaQuavis Coleman, New York Times Best Selling Author “My man Mike represents the west coast like a literary OG! I respect his grind and pen game! Look out for The Cell Block!” – Dutch “Mike Enemigo’s work is raw, authentic, and powerful. It’s made all the more remarkable by the fact that Mike’s books are written from inside a California prison. His work gives hope to incarcerated writers everywhere struggling to get their voices heard.” – Kevin Deutsch, Award-winning True Crime Writer, Author of Pill City: How Two Honor Roll Students Foiled the Feds and Built a Drug Empire
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