Dead Weight chronicles the experiences of a drug smuggler who, after being sentenced to eight years in state prison, earned a PhD in creative writing and became the only tenured professor in the United States with seven felony convictions.
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.
