D I X I E L. K I N G
Dixie L. King is a lifelong writer who never (until relatively recently)
considered herself a writer, despite the fact that she’s made a living writing
for the past twenty-five years. Dixie has been writing since she was seven years
old, when she taught herself to type using her father’s big metal Smith Corona
typewriter and a record (yes, vinyl) that instructed her on where to place her
fingers. She wrote her first novel between the ages of 11 and 13; however,
despite the fact that it was about drug addiction (which she had no experience
of) and took place in New York City (which she had never visited), Harper &
Row rejected the book, leading her to a creatively dry period.
A history major in college, Dixie fell in love with cultural
anthropology after taking the class “Anthropology of Women” at California State
University, Bakersfield. She double majored, earning a B.A. in both fields, then
went on to UCLA to earn her doctorate. In 1997, she started her own business,
Transforming Local Communities, Inc. (TLC). , which provides
grant writing, community needs assessment and program evaluation services to
school districts, agencies, health providers and other non-profits. Her
grant writing skills have brought more than $12 million dollars into central
California counties over the past 20 years. Dixie regularly offers workshops in facilitation skills, risk
and resilience, family systems, group process, and evaluation.
Dixie published “Food, Sex and Salvation: The Role of
Discourse in a Recovery House for Eating Disorders” in the book, Many
Mirrors: Body Image and Social Relations, Nicole Sault, ed., 1994,
before returning first to fiction and then to creative nonfiction. She received a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles in 2016. She is now blending her love of writing with
social justice issues, and using her skills to teach people who have been
traditionally denied a voice. She recently started a nonprofit, Transitional Youth Mobilizing for Change (TYMe4Change) that focuses on youth 16-24 years of age, providing them with the skills to identify and address issues of concern in their communities.
After serving as executive director of The International Women’s Writing Guild from 2014 to 2017, Dixie left that role to spend more time with her writing. She currently coordinates conferences The Guild.
Dixie’s current projects include works of memoir, personal
essays, and fantasy. She recently completed the first in a fantasy series. She offers a workshop: “Passionate Intention: Exercises for Nourishing the Writer Within.” As she likes to point out, “We teach what we need to learn.”
