Description

Larry McCaffery and Sinda Gregory interview Steve Dixon in Dixon's Riverside Drive apartment in Manhattan. McCaffery asks a question about revising, to which Dixon says, “In the end I’m looking for perfection in style as I’m revising it, to leave no word unturned.” They discuss how most writers cannot articulate their process. To McCaffery Dixon seems like a writer of urban fiction, and Dixon says he is “picking up something from the air” and writing about his experiences. McCaffery describes the process of turning interviews into published material. He and Gregory talk about what makes Dixon’s work distinct, and Dixon speaks of humor and dealing with life. McCaffery asks what he thinks of teaching creative writing. Dixon says he thinks the students improve their writing, and that he has something to offer. But sometimes he has “misgivings about teaching.” Dixon realizes that his “5-page sentences” and “30-page paragraphs” may “turn off” some readers, but he is just having fun. Dixon talks about his writing process. They discuss editing and literary magazines, mention Harold Jaffe and his editing. A fourth person named Michael has joined them. Dixon wants sometimes to get away from “traditional style” and “do it my own way.” McCaffery talks about writers who are self-conscious, and he and Gregory mention “static” stories and lack of resolution. “I like stories that just sort of peter out,” Dixon says, but the ending sometimes surprises him. They discuss writing poetry, and Dixon says he discarded his poems. McCaffery asks about influences on Dixon, and Dixon names writers from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Coover. Gregory talks about a letter from a writer that says Dixon possesses a “fundamental quality of maleness” as a writer, not meaning “macho” but qualities not usually written about. They talk about Jerome Klinkowitz and Steve Katz. McCaffery asks about Dixon’s background. Dixon says he was “a newsman in Washington” who had had a foundation in literature. Eventually he went to Stanford, in 1964, and became a published writer. Gregory asks about his main characters, and McCaffery asks if “those personas are you.” Dixon says they may “grow out of some . . . part of me.”