Introduction
Stephen Dixon (born 1936 in New York City) is an author of novels and short stories.
Biography
Dixon has been nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate. Dixon was one of seven children in the family. His work, characterized by mordant humor, long sentences, and a frank attention to human sexuality, has also earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy Institute 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 is a former 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 monumental figures as JFK, Richard Nixon and Khrushchev. He has cited Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, and Anton Chekhov as his favorite authors.
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 (Curbside Splendor, 2016)
- Kirkus Review of Late Stories, July 20th, 2016
Interviews and articles
- 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