Curtis Dawkins

Curtis Dawkins

Curtis Dawkins grew up in rural Illinois and earned an MFA in fiction writing at Western Michigan University. He has struggled with alcohol and substance abuse through most of his life and, during a botched robbery, killed a man on Halloween 2004. Since late 2005, he’s been serving a life sentence, with no possibility of parole, in various prisons throughout Michigan. He has three children with his partner, Kim, who is a writing professor living in Portland, Oregon.



Tattooing in prison is like trying to sew fine stitches with a knitting needle. It’s the essence of prison ingenuity – that so much can be done with so little.

The Graybar Hotel

Curtis Dawkins