Stephen Dixon Biography

(1991) I've just about nothing to say about my work, I only write fiction. I don't write book reviews or any nonfiction. In fact the only book review I've written is a story called "The Book Review," about a character writing one. The only non-fiction work I've written since 1963, when I stopped writing news, and 1968, when I stopped being a technical writer, is a piece called "Why I Don't Write Nonfiction," which proves its point and appeared in the Ohio Journal issue devoted to my work. I write novels and short stories only and I like writing both but for different reasons. Novels because they continue, stories because they end. All my novels but Fall and Rise, started off as short stories and just grew. I would rather the reader interpret what I write than I interpret it for the reader. I don't want to give my life away in a statement. Not only is my life not very interesting but sometime in the future I might use, in my own way, part of my life for my fiction and then a reader might say "That comes from his uninteresting life." Better the reader know next to nothing about my life and how I write, where I get my ideas, and so on.

Best for the reader to read my work and say for himself what to make of it. I have no way, nor do I have the means, nor do I have the inclination to simplify my work by explaining it, elucidating about it, or simply saying what I think about it. I work at one work at a time, story or novel, and when I'm done with it I begin another work. That's how I keep busy and also keep myself from thinking about my work once I finish with it.

(1995) I'm still pretty much the same. Dying to find more time to write, since I also teach fulltime and run a household. My ambition is to teach just half a year so I can devote eight months a year to my writing. I find it difficult to do all at once, but I still manage to complete 250 finished fiction pages a year. I don't know why but I still think I have something to write and a continually changing writing style to write it in.

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