Stephen Dixon is among the most prolific authors of short stories in the history of American letters, with over 500 published. Dixon has been nominated for the National Book Award twice, in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate. Charming, witty, and the son of a dentist, 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. His novel I (McSweeneys 2002) outraged many with its cryptic humor, long unintelligible sentences, and a playfulness with language that served more to confuse than to delight the reader. 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 Checkov as his favorite authors.
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