Dunn

Katherine Dunn was an American novelist, journalist, poet, and broadcaster whose work was closely tied to Portland, Oregon. She is most widely remembered for Geek Love (1989), the darkly imaginative novel that became her signature book and helped make her one of the most distinctive literary voices of her generation.

Beyond fiction, Dunn wrote extensively as a journalist and was especially respected for her boxing coverage. That mix of literary daring and close attention to physical, emotional, and social struggle gave her work a style that felt both unusual and immediate.

Born in 1945 in Garden City, Kansas, Dunn later studied at Reed College and remained strongly associated with Oregon throughout her life. She died in 2016, but her writing continues to attract readers who like fiction that is bold, unsettling, and impossible to forget.