Patrick Dixon
I am a writer & photographer who commercial fished, taught, and lived in Alaska for two decades. I taught Special Education, photography, English, journalism and drama during my 23-year tenure at Kenai Central High School. I began my career in fishing as a greenhorn deckhand, and left the industry when my wife and I decided to move to Olympia, Washington after I retired from teaching. During my fishing career I was elected to the Board of Directors of the United Cook Inlet Drift Fishing Association (UCIDA), and shortly before leaving Alaska I was appointed by the Governor to the Kenai River Advisory Board.
My stories and poetry have been published in National Fisherman, The Alaska Fisherman’s Journal and Pacific Fishing and Oregon Coast magazines multiple times, as well as in Cirque Literary Journal, Panoplyzine, Oberon, The Raven Chronicles, The Tishman Review. My work has been included in the anthologies Salt in Our Veins, FISH 2015, WA129, Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, and Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology, which I edited, designed and published with a GoFundMe campaign and a grant from Seattle-based Artist Trust.
I am on the Board of Directors of the Olympia Poetry Network, a nonprofit promoting poetry throughout the Puget Sound region for over thirty years. I have been a featured reader at their monthly general meetings, and before the pandemic, I read frequently for their open mic events. I currently host and MC virtual meetings, workshops, writing groups and featured readings on Zoom. I was a featured reader for The Olympic Peninsula Take a Stand: Art Against Hate Zoom webinar scheduled this coming October, and read on Zoom for the Alaska World Arts Festival in September 2021.
I am the poetry editor and a contributor for National Fisherman magazine’s quarterly, North Pacific Focus. I serve on the FisherPoets Gathering organizing committee, managing their websites and social media. My chapbook, Arc of Visibility, won the 2015 Alabama State Poetry Morris Memorial Award. I write, photograph and live in Olympia, Washington.
