Stephen Dixon (author)

Stephen Dixon (June 6, 1936 – November 6, 2019) was an American author of novels and short stories.

Stephen Dixon
BornStephen Bruce Ditchik
(1936-06-06)June 6, 1936
New York City, U.S.
DiedNovember 6, 2019(2019-11-06) (aged 83)
Towson, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation
  • Author
  • academic
Alma materCity College of New York

Life and career

Dixon was born on June 6, 1936 in Manhattan, New York. He was the fifth of seven children of Florence Leder, a beauty queen, chorus girl on Broadway, and interior decorator, and Abraham M. Ditchik.[1]

Dixon was nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate.[2] He also was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Prize for Fiction, the O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize.

He graduated from the City College of New York in 1958 and was a faculty member of Johns Hopkins University. Before becoming a full-time writer Dixon worked a plethora of odd jobs ranging from bus driver to bartender. In his early 20s he worked as a journalist and in radio, interviewing such political figures as John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev.[3] He cited Anton Chekhov, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Thomas Bernhard, and James Joyce as some of his favorite authors.

Dixon died from complications of Parkinson's disease at a hospice center in Towson, Maryland on November 6, 2019; he was 83.[4]

Works

Novels

Story collections
  • No Relief (Street Fiction Press, 1976)
  • Quite Contrary: The Mary and Newt Story (Harper & Row, 1979)
  • 14 Stories (Johns Hopkins, 1980)
  • Movies: Seventeen Stories (North Point Press, 1983)
  • Time to Go (Will and Magna Stories) (Johns Hopkins, 1984)
  • The Play and Other Stories (Coffee House Press, 1988)
  • Love and Will: Twenty Stories (Paris Review Editions / British American Publishing, 1989)
  • All Gone: 18 Short Stories (Johns Hopkins, 1990)
  • Friends: More Will and Magna Stories (Asylum Arts, 1990)
  • Long Made Short (Johns Hopkins, 1994)
  • The Stories of Stephen Dixon (Henry Holt, 1994)
  • Man on Stage: Play Stories (Hi Jinx Press, 1996)
  • Sleep (Coffee House Press, 1999)
  • The Switch (Rain Taxi, 1999) (a single story; Rain Taxi Brainstorm Series, Number 3)
  • What Is All This?: The Uncollected Stories of Stephen Dixon (Fantagraphics Books, 2010)
  • Late Stories (Trnsfr Books, 2016)[5]
  • [6]Dear Abigail and Other Stories (Trnsfr Books, 2019)
  • Writing, Written (Fantagraphics Books, 2019)
gollark: I ported Minoteaur, my old notes thing, to SQLite, for basically no good reason, and have implemented search at last.
gollark: Also, I work mostly on web stuff, so it doesn't type back, it... renders... back.
gollark: Sometimes I use a mouse too.
gollark: For just 10 easy payments of £10000 and one less easy payment of £1000000...
gollark: They were convinced by a snazzy presentation by some mental security company?

References
  1. Smith, Harrison (November 6, 2019). "Stephen Dixon, prolific writer of experimental, unsettling fiction, dies at 83". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 7, 2019.
  2. Professor Dixon broke it down with Richard Nixon The Johns Hopkins Newsletter, October 4, 2002
  3. The End of U: Novelist Stephen Dixon Talks Writing, Reading, And Retiring From Johns Hopkins Archived February 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Baltimore City Paper, February 7, 2007
  4. Smith, Harrison (November 6, 2019). "Stephen Dixon, prolific writer of experimental, unsettling fiction, dies at 83". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 6, 2019.
  5. Kirkus Review of Late Stories, July 20, 2016
  6. Dear Abigail was published on 2/5/19. Writing Written was published on 2/26/19.
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