Life strikes as swiftly as a lightning bolt ripping through the night sky during a springtime thunderstorm. It’s over just as quickly as it’s first shown.
Dave Morrison, “Mirror”
David Morrison didn’t think he could write when he first rolled into my class in the spring of 2022. I wasn’t so sure either, based on his handwriting, which was slightly more legible than chicken scratch.
But he worked harder than any student, deliberated tirelessly over words and phrases, and fell in love with the craft. Dave soaked up everything he learned like a free man standing in the rain after decades in a solitary cell.
“Big Dave” loved writing so much, he started a class of his own for the men in his dorm. We shared lesson plans and dreams.
At the end of that first semester, Dave told me he didn’t know what he would have done for the next 20 years if he hadn’t discovered writing. Writing gave his life purpose.
I invited Big Dave to join an advanced class the following year. I told students they would only work on one story and revise it until it was polished enough for a contest. He was game.
With the help of a mentor on the outside, editor Renée Fabian, Dave crafted the PEN America award-winning piece, “The 600 Pound Man.” In it, he illuminates his indignities as an obese man in prison. It’s honest and heartbreaking and peppered with hope.
I wish I could have shared his award with him; it would have meant so much. Dave died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. At the time, he was still incarcerated at Coastal State Prison in Savannah, Georgia.
Big Dave leaves behind his love of writing, a legacy he passed on to other incarcerated men. He gifted all of us with a story that needed to be told. Like in all his writing, Dave told us the unvarnished truth while highlighting that moments of light can always be found, even in the darkest places.
Ana Gascón Ivey
Creative Writing Teacher
Coastal State Prison
Savannah, GA
