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K. B. Dixon

Stories, Essays, Books, & Misc.

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                    a new novel
                            by
                      K.B. Dixon

A Painter’s Life is a characteristically mischievous oddity. A mix of biographical scraps, journal entries, review excerpts, and interviews, it is an intimate and introspective tour of the art world—a portrait of the sometimes portraitist Christopher Freeze. Focusing in part on Freeze’s friends, family, and fellow artists—as well as his relationship with his frazzled dealer and his would-be monographer—it is an inventive, seriocomic look at one peculiar man’s ceaseless struggle to make something beautiful.

Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist

“Beguiling...a slyly funny and perceptive take on creativity and the artist's life, and a gentle skewering of the art establishment and critics."
--John Foyston, The Oregonian

"Often books about painters don't ring true, but this one...does." --Sharon Butler,Two Coats of Paint

"Reads like a journal…but unlike a journal, this sack of asides, hopes, press clippings, musings on friendships, work, other artists, critics, dealers, paint and the point of paint adds up to a life." --Regina Hackett, Another Bouncing Ball

"A Painter's Life is a novel in chunks...Funny...Quirky... Charming." --Roberta Fallon, The Artblog

"Absorbing. Full of keen human insight...so dead on you can't help but laugh. A treatise on creativity, the fleeting nature of inspiration, and the difficulty of producing art..." --Meagan Sweeney, Leafing Through Life

"Crisp ... thought provoking...A novel I'll...return to when I want to ponder art...or just grab some great quotable quotes." --Megan Snider, Write Meg!

Available through your local bookseller or Online at:
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barnesandnoble.com

“Maybe between the two of us we can trick me into being honest with you.” A collage of notes written in a sixth-floor men’s room, The Sum of His Syndromes is the story of a slightly disturbed young man who has found himself at a personal and professional crossroads. There is a job he doesn’t want, a girl he does, and a friend who is writing a book. If it weren’t for the wise counsel of his therapist, the anomalous Dr. C, who knows what might have happened.

Oregon Book Award Finalist

“Enigmatic…Addictive…With passages that are so well turned they can be called lyrical—and others that are laugh out loud funny.” – A.M. Homes

"...original...unusual...full of pithy observations" -- Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

"Syndromes is funny; it's insightful; it's gonzo" --Willamette Week

"Dixon effortlessly captures what it's like to be human in a relatively uncaring world, but the beauty of the book is in the fact that he makes you laugh while doing so." --Katherine Weikert, The Lit Mob

"A quirky book that I absolutely loved. I'd like to quote at least half of it." --Nancy Horner, Bookfoolery

Available through your local
booksellers or Online at:
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powells.com
barnesandnoble.com

K. B. Dixon’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and journals. The recipient of an OAC Individual Artist Fellowship Award, he is the author of three novels, The Sum of His Syndromes, Andrew (A to Z), and A Painter's Life, as well as the short story collection My Desk and I.

“How was my day? I’m trying not to remember.” A wry, unconventional character study, Andrew (A to Z) is a sort of mosaic that the reader assembles subconsciously. Focusing on the narrator’s family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors, it is the story of a quasi-neurotic malcontent on the edge of the edge of middle middle-age. An amateur photographer, the office satirist, an evening’s dinner guest, Andrew pastes together in alphabetical disorder a collage portrait of his baffled suburban life.

“A unique sort of pleasure… Intriguing …Andrew is a fully realized Everyman, juggling life, death and a hundred other little irritations. Clever, but never mocking or cruel” --Katie Schneider, The Oregonian

"Engaging protagonist...Lively writing...Penetrating...Unorthodox."--Daniel Green, The Reading Experience

Available through your local booksellers or Online at:
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Ranging freely from the fractured character sketch to the political satire, from the study of strained relationships to office angst, the stories in My Desk and I take liberty with the form. Short on sentimentality, but not necessarily on sentiment, the characters in this collection—a girl in a coffee shop, an obsessed fan, a Little League pitcher—offer comic, thought-provoking takes on life as it is lived in the corners of a culture preoccupied with the hoopla of a brand-named now.

"Slices of life...Unconventional." --The Oregonian

Available through your local
booksellers or Online at:
amazon.com
powells.com
barnesandnoble.com