Melvin Dixon
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Melvin Dixon (May 29, 1950 – October 26, 1992) was an American Professor of Literature, and an author, poet and translator. He wrote about black
gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
men.


Early life

Melvin Dixon was born on May 29, 1950, in
Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 ...
. He earned a BA from
Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...
in 1971 and a PhD from
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in 1975.


Career

Dixon was a professor of literature at
Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
from 1980 to 1992. He was the author of several books. In 1989, ''
Trouble the Water ''Trouble the Water'' is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. The film portrays a young couple surviving Hurricane Katrina, leading them to face their own troubled past during the storm's aftermath, in a c ...
'' won the Charles H. and N. Mildred Nilon Excellence in Minority Fiction Award. ''Vanishing Rooms'' won a
Ferro-Grumley Award The Ferro-Grumley Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle and the Ferro-Grumley Foundation to a book deemed the year's best work of LGBT fiction. The award is presented in memory of writers Robert Ferro and Michael Grum ...
for LGBT Literature in 1992.


Death

Dixon died of complications from
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
, which he had been battling since 1989, in his hometown, one year after his partner Richard Horovitz did.


Bibliography


Collection of poems

*'' Change of Territory'' (1983) *'' Love's Instruments'' (1995, posthumous) Heartbeat


Textbooks

*''Ride Out the Wilderness: Geography and Identity in Afro-American Literature'' (1987)


Novels

*''
Trouble the Water ''Trouble the Water'' is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal. The film portrays a young couple surviving Hurricane Katrina, leading them to face their own troubled past during the storm's aftermath, in a c ...
'' (1989) *'' Vanishing Rooms'' (1990)


Collection of essays

*''A Melvin Dixon Critical Reader'' (2010)


References


External links


Melvin Dixon profile and poems on Poets.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dixon, Melvin 1950 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American novelists 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics African-American novelists African-American poets American male novelists Brown University alumni American gay writers African-American LGBT people Writers from Stamford, Connecticut Writers from New York City Wesleyan University alumni American LGBT poets American LGBT novelists LGBT people from Connecticut 20th-century American poets American male poets AIDS-related deaths in Connecticut 20th-century American male writers Novelists from New York (state) 20th-century African-American writers 20th-century American LGBT people African-American male writers Gay poets