Katherine Dunn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Katherine Dunn
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| Born |
Katherine Karen Dunn
October 24, 1945 Garden City, Kansas, U.S.
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| Died | May 11, 2016 (aged 70) Portland, Oregon, U.S.
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Reed College |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Years active | 1965–2016 |
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Notable work
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Geek Love |
| Spouse(s) | Paul Pomerantz |
| Children | 1 |
Katherine Karen Dunn (October 24, 1945 – May 11, 2016) was an American writer. She was a novelist, journalist, and poet. She also worked as a voice artist and radio personality. Katherine Dunn was from Portland, Oregon. She is most famous for her novel Geek Love, published in 1989. She also wrote many articles about boxing.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Katherine Dunn was born in Garden City, Kansas, in 1945. She was the second youngest of five children. Her father left the family when she was very young. Her mother, Velma Golly, was an artist. The family moved around a lot during Katherine's childhood.
She went to high school in Tigard, Oregon. Later, she attended Reed College in Portland. She received a full scholarship to study there. She studied philosophy and then psychology. However, she never officially graduated from college. She left home when she was 17 years old. The challenges of growing up with little money influenced her writing.
Starting Her Writing Career
Dunn began writing her first novel, Attic, while at Reed College. This was around 1967. She met a man during a trip and they traveled together for ten years. They visited places like Mexico, Boston, and Spain. She finished Attic while in Seville, Spain.
After that, they traveled to Karpathos, an island in Greece. There, she finished her second novel, Truck, in 1971. She became pregnant and gave birth to her son in Dublin, Ireland. After living in different places for seven years, they moved back to Portland. They chose Portland because it had a good alternative school for her son. She lived in the Nob Hill area until she passed away.
Working and Teaching
To support herself and her son, Katherine Dunn worked many jobs. She waited tables in the mornings. At night, she worked in bars. She also painted houses and did voice-over work. In the 1970s, she hosted a radio show on KBOO, a community radio station in Portland. On her show, she read short stories by other writers.
She also taught writing classes. She taught advanced creative writing at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon. She also taught a graduate course at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.
Writing About Boxing
In 1981, Katherine Dunn started writing about boxing for Willamette Week. She really loved the sport. She went on to write about boxing for many other newspapers and magazines. These included The Oregonian and The New York Times. Many people called her one of the best boxing writers in the United States. She even started training in boxing herself when she was in her 40s.
She was also an editor and writer for an online boxing magazine called cyberboxingzone.com. In the 1990s, she wrote a regular boxing column for PDXS. She once wrote a detailed review of Evander Holyfield's sportsmanship. This was during his famous and controversial fight with Mike Tyson.
In 2004, she won an award for her work on School of Hard Knocks: The Struggle for Survival in America's Toughest Boxing Gyms. Her essays about boxing were collected in a book. This book was called One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing and came out in 2009.
Her Most Famous Novel: Geek Love
Katherine Dunn's third published novel was Geek Love. It came out in 1989. This book became her most famous work. It was a finalist for the National Book Award. It was also a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for best first horror novel.
Dunn remembered starting to write Geek Love in the late 1970s. She thought about how nature and upbringing shape people. This idea helped her create the book. Geek Love has sold over half a million copies. It has always been available to buy since it was first published.
Later Years and Unfinished Works
In 1989, Dunn announced she was working on a new novel. It was called The Cut Man. She continued working on this project for many years. In 2008, it was reported that the publisher Alfred A. Knopf planned to release The Cut Man. However, the novel was never published. A small part of it was published in The Paris Review in 2010. It was titled "Rhonda Discovers Art."
In 2012, Katherine Dunn reconnected with Paul Pomerantz. He was her boyfriend from her time at Reed College. They got married. Katherine Dunn passed away on May 11, 2016. Her son said she died from problems related to lung cancer.
Books Published After Her Death
In 2022, a novel she wrote in 1971 was finally published. It was called Toad. This was the third novel she wrote, but it became her fourth published book. The publisher Harper and Row had bought the rights to Toad in 1971. But they decided not to publish it. They told her, "Nobody in this book is likable!"
Toad is about a woman who lives alone after a difficult time. She thinks back to her college days in Portland in the early 1970s. She remembers being a student with little money. She also recalls a group of wealthy friends she made. After 1979, she put the book aside. It was only published because it was found in her old papers at Lewis & Clark College. Her son and others worked to get this book published.
Two short stories by Katherine Dunn were also published after her death. "The Resident Poet" appeared in The New Yorker in 2020. "The Education of Mrs. R." was published in The Paris Review in 2022. A collection of her short stories is also planned for publication.
