



After experimenting with drugs during a high school summer program at Harvard, Blakinger spiraled into a nine-year heroin addiction, turning to petty crime and sex work to support her habit. When her figure skating partner left her in 2001, dashing their dreams of competing in the Olympics, 17-year-old Blakinger redirected her intensity on the ice toward self-destruction. Not just a story about getting out and getting off drugs, this galvanizing memoir is about the power of second chances about who our society throws away and who we allow to reach for redemption-and how they reach for it.Ī resonant call for criminal justice reform rings out from investigative journalist Blakinger's extraordinary debut. Written with searing intensity, unflinching honesty, and shocks of humor, Corrections in Ink uncovers that dark, brutal system that affects us all. As the days ticked by, Keri came to understand how broken the justice system is and who that brokenness hurts the most.Īfter she walked out of her cell for the last time, Keri became a reporter dedicated to exposing our flawed prisons as only an insider could. Along the way, she met women from all walks of life-who were all struggling through the same upside-down world of corrections. There, in the Twilight Zone of New York’s jails and prisons, Keri grappled with the wreckage of her missteps and mistakes as she sobered up and searched for a better path. Her arrest made the front page of the local news and landed her behind bars for nearly two years. Then, on a cold day during her senior year, the police caught her walking down the street with a Tupperware full of heroin. But when her skating career suddenly fell apart, that meant diving into self-destruction with the intensity she once saved for the ice.įor the next nine years, Keri ricocheted from one dark place to the next: living on the streets, selling drugs and sex, and shooting up between classes all while trying to hold herself together enough to finish her degree at Cornell. Growing up, that meant throwing herself into competitive figure skating with an all-consuming passion that led her to nationals. Keri Blakinger always lived life at full throttle. Inspiring and relevant.” - The New York TimesĪn electric and unforgettable memoir about a young woman's journey-from the ice rink, to addiction and a prison sentence, to the newsroom-and how she emerged with a fierce determination to expose the broken system she experienced. a riveting story about suffering, recovery, and redemption.
