S T E P H E N D I X O N .
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Biography
Currently a professor of fiction at Johns Hopkins University, Stephen Dixon's most recent novel is I. He is the author of twenty-three books, including Gould, 30: Pieces of a Novel, and Movies. His novels Interstate and Frog were both finalists for the National Book Award. Frog was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Dixon has written over 450 short stories, which have appeared in Harper's, Playboy, Esquire, The Paris Review, Triquarterly, and Boulevard, to name a few. He has been awarded three O. Henry Awards, two NEA Fellowships, a Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, and an American Academy-Institute of Arts & Letters Award in Literature.
Dixon is presently working on Selected Uncollected Stories, and going through about a 100 stories of his that have never been in collections but have been in magazines. He is rewriting each one from the beginning. He expects it to make up two collections and be over 270 pages long.
He finished a new novel in September 2003 called Phone Rings, which is now being submitted to publishers. In 2004, Melville House Books is bringing out Old Friends (formerly Two, and after that, Leonard). It has been entirely rewritten and savagely reduced. His novel I., meant to be part of a trilogy—I., Two, Three—is now part of a duet, I. and End of I. Recently the French version of Again, the novella that concludes I., was published as Parce Que C'etais Elle. The publisher Editori Della Arca is publishing an Italian translation of I., as well.
In the last three years, four French films were adapted from Dixon's novels, and about ten short films based on his short stories were produced. The first full-length film was from Too Late and was called J'ai Tue Clemance Acera from Too Late. His novel Interstate was also made into a French film, Dissonances. It premiered in December 2003. Another French film is being made of the novel Work (Street Fiction Press, 1977), which was published by Balland in 2002.
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Books
Friends: More Will and Magna Stories (Leaping Dog Press, April 2005)
Old Friends (Melville House Publishing, October 2004)
I. (McSweeney's, 2002)
Tisch (Red Hen Press, 2000)
30: Pieces of a Novel (Henry Holt & Company, 1999)
Sleep (Consortium, 1999)
Gould: A Novel in Two Novels (Henry Holt & Company, 1997)
Frog: A Novel (Owl Books, NY; reprint edition, February 1997)
Contributor, Virtually Now: Stories of Science, Technology and the Future (Persea Books, 1996)
Man on Stage: Play Stories (Hi Jinx Press, 1996)
Interstate (Henry Holt & Company, 1995)
The Stories of Stephen Dixon (Henry Holt & Company, March 1994)
Long Made Short: Stories (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)
All Gone: 18 Short Stories (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990)
Garbage (Cane Hill Press, 1989)
Love and Will (British Amer Pub Ltd, 1989)
The Play and Other Stories (Coffee House Press, 1989)
Fall and Rise (North Point Press, 1985)
Time to Go (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984)
Movies: Seventeen Stories (North Point Press, 1983)
14 Stories (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980)
Quite Contrary: The Mary and Newt Story (HarperCollins, 1979)
Too Late (HarperCollins, 1978)
Work (Street Fiction Press, 1977)
No Relief (Street Fiction Press, 1976)
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Awards
Pushcart Prize, 1999, The Burial
New Stories of the South Award, 1998, The Poet
Best American Short Story, 1996, Sleep
National Book Award finalist, 1995, Interstate
NEA Literature Fellowship, 1994-95
O. Henry Award, 1993, The Rare Muscovite
Best American Short Story, 1993, Man, Woman, and Boy
PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award finalist, 1992, Frog
National Book Award finalist, 1991, Frog
The Paris Review's John Train Humor Prize, 1985
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1984-85
American Academy-Institute of Arts & Letters Award in Literature, 1983
O. Henry Award, 1982, Layaways
O. Henry Award, 1977, Mac in Love
Pushcart Prize, 1977, Milk Is Very Good for You
NEA Literature Fellowship, 1974-75
Stegner Fellow, Stanford University, 1964-65
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Press
January 2004
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Underway
By Stephen Dixon
"I'm presently working on Selected Uncollected Stories. I'm going through about a 100 stories of mine that have never been in collections but have been in magazines, and am rewriting each one from the beginning. I'm learning a lot about my early writing—some of these stories are 40 years old."
February 2003
One Story
Interview
Author unknown
"I was reading The Idiot by Dostoevski and I thought I'd write my own story about an idiot. So I wrote the 1st part of Three Novels, called it 'The Idiot.'"
October 2002
Hyde Park Review of Books
Review: I.
The First Novel in a New Stephen Dixon Trilogy
By Alan Tinkler
"Stephen Dixon is a silent master of prose. While other writers seem to garner fame and fortune, Dixon plods along, writing a stunning array..."
July 2002
Austin Chronicle
Review: I.
By Amanda Eyre Ward
"His stories are about re-imagining, about coming to terms with what could have been."
July 2002
Baltimore City Paper
Review: I. and Anything Goes by Madison
Smartt Bell
By Micha Anft
"By this point, Dixon has us in the palm of his hand. I. is riveting, ambitious fiction."
June 2002
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Stephen Dixon Week: The Switch
By Stephen Dixon
June 2002
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Interview: Stephen Dixon Week
By Lee Epstein
"When I started it with Frog, I tried to vary it. But in Frog, for instance, there's a paragraph that goes on for one hundred pages. It's sort of a challenge to write something where the reader wouldn't notice there wasn't a period in one hundred pages. But it's what you say: it's for intensity. I just look for a natural place to spot, but I can't find it, and I can't stop until I do. But I think I'm coming out of it. I've been in a paragraph slump for twenty years."
June 2002
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Stephen Dixon Week: On Stephen Dixon
By Jonathan Lethem
"Stephen Dixon is one of the great secret masters ‹too secret. I return again and again to his stories for writerly inspiration, moral support and comic relief at moments of personal misery, and, several times, in a spirit of outright plagiaristic necessity: borrowing a jumpstart from a few lines of Dixon has been a real problem-solver in my own short fiction."
June 2002
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Stephen Dixon Week: On Stephen Dixon
By J. Robert Lennon
"Dixon's prose‹sharp, idiomatic, intentionally and comically convoluted‹struck me as entirely original. I'm not referring to the striver's originality, that of the self-invented artist; I mean the originality that is only possible when a writer has managed to grope his way toward his own particularity. Dixon managed that years ago, and keeps on doing it."
June 2002
McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Stephen Dixon Week: Paris
By Stephen Dixon
May 2002
Washington Post
Review: I.
Fits and Starts
By Steven Moore
"Highly personal, in a few cases embarrassingly intimate, I. is artfully artless, honest and true."
2002
Boston's Weekly Dig
Review: I.
By Luke O'Neil
"But to quibble with the indulgences of such an accomplished and dizzyingly brilliant writer (25 books published and nearly 500 stories) would be an unnecessary stint in giant-slaying."
1998
The Virginia Quarterly Review
Short Story: The Subway Ride
By Stephen Dixon
1997
The Arkansas Review: A Journal of Delta Studies
Short Story: The Belly Dancer
By Stephen Dixon
1997
The Literary Review
Short Story: Gould at the Market
By Stephen Dixon
May 1996
Harper's
Short Story: Shortcut
By Stephen Dixon
1996
The Antioch Review
Short Story: The Pool
By Stephen Dixon
1995
The Virginia Quarterly Review
Notes on Current Books: Fiction
"Stephen Dixon is a gifted short story writer, an innovator and craftsman of the first rank. No other writer has done more to energize the form in decades."
January 1995
Harper's
Short Story: Sleep
By Stephen Dixon
"Several people wanted to see him to his car after the burial but he said, 'No, I'd like to walk to it by myself, I don't know why.'"
1993
The Kenyon Review
Short Story: Interstate 3, Paragraph 1
By Stephen Dixon
Winter 1990
Studies in Short Fiction
Review: Love and Will
By Christopher Metress
"Having published four novels and seven short story collections since 1976, Stephen Dixon is quickly emerging as one of America's most prolific and versatile writers."
Small Mouth Press
Interview
"But Story of a Story I love because it's a one of a kind book. I would love to see it published some day because I still think it's fresh, while Tisch, although I take some chances in it, I'm doing more for historical purposes than anything else. I still feel that it's a valid, funny novel."
JHU News-Letter
JHU's Stephen Dixon Reflects on His Life's Work
By Young Chang
"I just write as well as I can and if one happens to be nominated for a major award, that's good for the book, good for the publisher and obviously good for the writer too, but it could also be bad for the writer."
Dave Edelman Book Reviews
Review: Interstate
"Here's hoping that the publication of Interstate, his latest novel, will bring a new appreciation for this modern master of the art of fiction."
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