Kevin Sawyer

Bio: Kevin D. Sawyer is an African American native of San Francisco, California, born in 1963. Sawyer is the former associate editor of San Quentin News and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has written numerous unpublished short stories, memoirs, essays, poems, and journals on incarceration and many other subjects. Some of Sawyers published work appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Post, UCLA Law Review (Discourse), Columbia Journalism Review, Prison Journalism Project, Cal Matters, Bay City News, the News Station, El Tecolote, Filter Magazine, Harvard Journal of African American Policy, Iron City Magazine, Street Spirit, Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, PEN America, San Quentin News, San Francisco Bay View, Solitary Watch, the Davis Vanguard, the Guardian, the Life of the Law, the Pioneer, Wall City, 580 Split, Apogee Journal, Mercury News, Palo Alto Online, SF Gate, Davis Enterprise, Mountain View Voice, American Prison Writing Archive, Brothers in Pen, California Prison Focus, and the Harbinger (New York University Review of Law & Social Change). Sawyer is the former associate editor of San Quentin News. He is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a 2024 Stillwater Award recipient for a Best News story, a 2019 PEN America Honorable Mention for nonfiction, a 2016 recipient of the James Aronson Award for Exemplary Community Journalism, and he was on the SQ News team that won SPJ’s 2014 James Madison Freedom of Information Award. Prior to incarceration, Sawyer worked 14 continuous years in the telecommunications industry, at several corporations. He is a certified electrician through the National Center for Construction Education and Research, a trained audio engineer through the Last Mile, and a practiced guitar and piano player. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mass communication, with a special broadcasting option from California State University Hayward; and a Diploma as a paralegal/legal assistant from Blackstone Career Institute. In April 2023, he was offered admission to the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California Berkeley.