In Maryland, a Soviet-Style Punishment for a Novelist

[Valin]

The Atlantic:

An eighth-grade teacher who writes fiction under a nom de plume is ordered to undergo an "emergency medical evaluation" for his novel about a school shooting.

Jeffrey Goldberg

Sep 1 2014

 

From the Dept. of Insane and Dangerous Overreactions to Fictional Threats:

 

A 23-year-old teacher at a Cambridge, Maryland, middle school has been placed on leave and—in the words of a local news report—"taken in for an emergency medical evaluation" for publishing, under a pseudonym, a novel about a school shooting. The novelist, Patrick McLaw, an eighth-grade language-arts teacher at the Mace's Lane Middle School, was placed on leave by the Dorchester County Board of Education, and is being investigated by the Dorchester County Sheriff's Office, according to news reports from Maryland's Eastern Shore. The novel, by the way, is set 900 years in the future.

 

Here is part of a breathless, law enforcement-friendly report from WBOC, which describes itself as "Delmarva's News Leader":

 

(Snip)

 

Imagine that—a novelist who didn't store bombs and guns at the school at which he taught. How improbable! Especially considering that he uses an "alias," which is apparently the law-enforcement term for "nom de plume." (Here is the Amazon page for The Insurrectionist, by the way. Please note that the book was published in 2011, before McLaw was hired.)

 

(Snip)