In 1978, around the time Dunn was steeped in the work of writing the novel, which took her ten years to finish, my friend David Sevedge, whose pen name was H. Home, interviewed Ms. Dunn for a small poetry tabloid I edited at the time in Northwest Portland. I knew Katherine (I watched the first Tommy Hearns/Sugar Ray Leonard fight at her house), but not well enough (nor was I brave enough, I'll confess) to interview her.
To say that this friendly, extremely intelligent woman intimidated me would be an understatement.
Sevedge was a fast friend of hers, a good poet and very funny guy who could match Katherine's meteoric wit syllable by syllable in a heartbeat. He'd read her two published novels as well, which made him uniquely qualified for the job.
The resultant interview, a collaboration of high art, was rousing. We called it "Portrait of a Genius at 33."
The interview is published in the Round Bend Press edition of Cold Eye, one of the first books this press took on in 2010.
You ought to have it if you're a Dunn disciple or just curious about the early Katherine Dunn.
TS
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