Lawson Strickland, a native Virginian, joined the U.S. Army at the age of 17 and served from 1988 to 1992. Transferred from Germany to Ft. Polk, Louisiana, Strickland was honorably discharged and subsequently arrested, charged, and convicted of 1st degree murder stemming from a bank robbery, leaving behind his wife and daughter. Strickland is now in the 30th year of a life sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The first 23 years of that sentence were spent in solitary confinement where he wrote, read, and taught himself painting until being released to general population. In 2016, Strickland was awarded second place for Fiction in the PEN Prison Writing Contest for “September’s Last Day.” Since then, he has graduated from the prison’s Industrial Generator Vocational School, served as a Department of Corrections certified educational tutor, currently serves as a certified mentor conducting pre-release rehabilitation classes, and works full-time as a contributor for The Angolite, the prison’s criminal justice magazine.
