Katherine Dunn was born in Garden City, Kansas on October 24, 1945. She was educated at Portland State University and Reed College. Her first novel, Attic, was published in 1970. Her other novels included Truck and Geek Love, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1989.
She also worked as a boxing reporter, a columnist, and a poet. Her non-fiction book, School of Hard Knocks: The Struggle for Survival in America's Toughest Boxing Gyms, received the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Award in 2004. She died from complications of lung cancer on May 11, 2016 at the age of 70.
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