Stephen Dixon (born Stephen Bruce Ditchik; June 6, 1936 – November 6, 2019) was an American author of novels and short stories.
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. 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.The End of U: Novelist Stephen Dixon Talks Writing, Reading, And Retiring From Johns Hopkins Baltimore City Paper, February 7, 2007
Dixon was nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate. The Johns Hopkins Newsletter, October 4, 2002 Frog, at 860 pages, was his longest and most ambitious novel, and garnered reviews comparing the work favorably to James Joyce's Ulysses.Frog Publishers Weekly, January 30, 1995 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.
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)Kirkus Review of Late Stories, July 20, 2016 Dear Abigail was published on 2/5/19. Writing Written was published on 2/26/19.Dear Abigail and Other Stories (Trnsfr Books, 2019) Writing, Written (Fantagraphics Books, 2019)
In anthologies and magazines
"The Chess House", in The Paris Review, no. 29 (1963) "Making a Break", in Making a Break: Volume Two, New Departures in Fiction, ed. Robert and Rochelle Bonazzi (Latitudes Press, 1975) "Sleep", in The Best American Short Stories 1996, ed. John Edgar Wideman (Houghton Mifflin, 1996)
References
External links Review of his most recent (2019) books Comprehensive career interview with Fifth Wednesday Journal.
"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