Stephen Dixon (author)

Stephen Dixon (born Stephen Bruce Ditchik; June 6, 1936 – November 6, 2019) was an American author of novels and short stories.^[1]

Stephen Dixon
Born	Stephen Bruce Ditchik (1936-06-06)June 6, 1936 New York City, U.S.
Died	November 6, 2019(2019-11-06) (aged 83) Towson, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Author academic
Alma mater	City 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] 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.^[2]

Dixon was nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate.^[3] Frog, at 860 pages, was his longest and most ambitious novel, and garnered reviews comparing the work favorably to James Joyce's Ulysses.^[4] 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 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.^[5]

Works

Novels

• Work (Street Fiction Press, 1977)
• Too Late (Harper & Row, 1978)
• Fall & Rise (North Point Press, 1985)
• Garbage (Cane Hill Press, 1988)
• Frog (British American Publishing, 1991)
• Interstate (Henry Holt, 1995)
• Gould (Henry Holt, 1997)
• 30: Pieces of a Novel (Henry Holt, 1999)
• Tisch (Red Hen Press, 2000) (his first completed novel, written 1961–1969)
• I. (McSweeney's, 2002)
• Old Friends (Melville House Publishing, 2004)
• Phone Rings (Melville House Publishing, 2005)
• End of I. (McSweeney's, 2006)
• Meyer (Melville House Publishing, 2007)
• Story of a Story and Other Stories: A Novel (Fugue State Press), 2012
• His Wife Leaves Him (Fantagraphics Books), 2013
• Letters to Kevin (Fantagraphics Books), 2016
• Beatrice (Publishing Genius), 2016

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)^[6]
• ^[7]Dear Abigail and Other Stories (Trnsfr Books, 2019)
• Writing, Written (Fantagraphics Books, 2019)

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. 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
3. Professor Dixon broke it down with Richard Nixon The Johns Hopkins Newsletter, October 4, 2002
4. Frog Publishers Weekly, January 30, 1995
5. Smith, Harrison (November 6, 2019). "Stephen Dixon, prolific writer of experimental, unsettling fiction, dies at 83". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 6, 2019.
6. Kirkus Review of Late Stories, July 20, 2016
7. Dear Abigail was published on 2/5/19. Writing Written was published on 2/26/19.

External links

• 10/14/19 Review of his most recent (2019) books
• Comprehensive career interview with Fifth Wednesday Journal.
• 2002 profile of Dixon in The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
• "The Plug", Dixon on Thomas Bernhard, at Rain Taxi
• 1997 article about Dixon in The Johns Hopkins News-Letter
• Excerpt from the novel I., at McSweeney's Internet Tendency, with links to other excerpts, and to comments on Dixon's work by Jonathan Lethem and J. Robert Lennon.
• February 2007 article about Dixon in Baltimore City Paper
• Dixon interviewed by Tao Lin