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Susan Dixon

I have taught writing in classrooms for decades, mentored beginning writers, and supported stalled writers in finishing their project. I write both non-fiction and fiction and participate in three writing groups. I am always on the lookout for new writers who just need to know they have a story and that their story is worth telling.

The Panera Stranger

This was an introduction to Seeking Quan Am that I kept for a long time before going in a different direction.

Mark Smith and I were sitting with a friend in a coffee shop in Ithaca, N.Y. waiting for a mechanic to repair my car. The three of us had been to Vietnam together and we were enjoying a reunion visit. Mark wore a cap with “Vietnam Veteran” embroidered above the bill. We sipped our coffee and nibbled pastry, talking. Suddenly, a stranger appeared at our table, thrust his hand at Mark, and boomed, “Thank you for your service!” Mark, who was holding his coffee cup in his right hand, used his left to simultaneously take the man’s hand and wave him away. The man said something else in a hearty voice and left.

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Susan Dixon February 12, 2022 No Comments

War Story, With Stereotypes

Women are not less fierce than men, less dedicated to ideals, less passionate about beliefs. But women, at least when they are not trying to succeed in a man’s world, write differently than men. They use language differently. Their angle, the focus of their lens, is different. Not better, or not necessarily so, just different.

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Susan Dixon September 7, 2020 3 Comments

Story-listening

This is another story about Coyote, who is entirely a literary device, albeit one with a personality.

“Tell me a story,” I demanded.

‘Demanded’ might be too strong a word because I meant it as a compliment. Coyote tells such good stories and I love losing myself in them. Like the year at Christmas when I heard The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for the first time and I listened while I was looking deep within the tree and I thought I had actually got into Narnia somehow.

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Susan Dixon December 3, 2019 No Comments

The (Possible) Return of Coyote

There is something very satisfying about writing on a typewriter—rolling the paper in, the active little clicks, ripping the paper out if what you wrote

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Susan Dixon December 3, 2019 No Comments

Writing War

A year ago I sat on a folding chair in an ordinary meeting room listening to poetry. The room had a table with the usual

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Susan Dixon November 22, 2019 1 Comment

Truth and Lies

PROMPT: “How is truth manipulated to serve the ends of war-making? Why would lies be thought to be necessary? Are lies ever justified? What is

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Susan Dixon September 6, 2019 No Comments

The War Against the Land

Many of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam saw it: the extraordinary beauty of the land they had come to destroy. They took note of

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Susan Dixon June 22, 2019 2 Comments

Tribal Memory

A friend is writing about stories in her family that turn out, upon investigation, not to be true. That made me wonder if the stories

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Susan Dixon June 15, 2012 No Comments

The Hard-Core Hat

The men sit, brooding, waiting, exhausted. If they are told to do something, they are ready to do it, their equipment close by. Their weapons

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Susan Dixon May 3, 2012 No Comments

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