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Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays Book Launch
March 1, 2022 @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm EST
Please join The Notebooks Collective in welcoming Dr. Randall Horton for the launch of his new memoir, Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays. Dr. Horton will do a brief reading followed by a conversation with host Ashley Johnson and guests Gary Lyles and Mark Johnson. Q&A to follow.
Reserve your tickets now to receive a special offer to purchase Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays.
Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays
Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays chronicles the improbable turnaround of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, returned to society to earn a PhD in creative writing and become the only tenured professor in the United States with seven felony convictions. Dr. Horton’s visceral essays highlight the difficulties of trying to change one’s life for the better, how the weight of felony convictions never dissipates.
About Dr. Randall Horton
Randall Horton is the author of a previous memoir and several books of poetry, including Pitch Dark Anarchy: Poems (TriQuarterly Books, 2013) and The Lingua Franca of Ninth Street. In 2019 he served as poet-in-residence for the Civil Rights Corps in Washington, DC, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the American legal system. The recipient of numerous awards, including the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Bea González Poetry, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a Right to Return Fellowship from the Soze Foundation, he currently sits on the Advisory Board of PEN America’s PEN Prison Writing Program. He is a professor of English at the University of New Haven.
About Host Ashley Johnson
Ashley Johnson’s essays have appeared in Sleet, Glassworks, and Iron City Magazine. Her essay Sing was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. She is currently working on a hybrid-memoir that examines the residual effects of mass incarceration on the Black family structure. Ashley holds her MFA from the Solstice MFA Creative Writing Program of Pine Manor College, MA in Education from UMUC, and BS in Criminal Justice from Marymount University. Ashley currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband and their two sons.