Athena Dixon on Exploring Isolation, Art, and Connection
The Weight of Loneliness
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TW Managing Editor Neva Talladen interviews Athena Dixon, author of The Loneliness Files. In this episode, Neva and Athena discuss the weight of loneliness that came about during the lockdown of 2020 and how it affected our daily lives even after being lifted.
Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. She is the author of a memoir in essays titled The Loneliness Files (Tin House, 2023), an essay collection titled The Incredible Shrinking Woman (Split/Lip Press, 2020), and No God in This Room, a poetry chapbook and winner of the Intersectional Midwest Chapbook Contest (Argus House Press, 2018). Her work also appears in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books, 2018) and Getting to the Truth: The Practice and Craft of Creative Nonfiction (Books by Hippocampus, 2021).
Athena’s work has appeared in publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, Narratively, Gay Magazine, Shenandoah: The Washington and Lee Review, Grub Street, Literary Hub, and Washington Square Review, among others. She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes for both poetry and creative nonfiction as well as a Best of the Net nomination for poetry. She is a fellow of Callaloo and VONA (Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation) and a Tin House Winter Workshop attendee. Additionally, she has presented at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference, HippoCamp, and the Muse & the Marketplace, among other panels and conferences across the nation. She has served as a writer in residence for the app Dipsea and was also awarded a fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and a second book residency from Tin House.
She was the founder of Linden Avenue Literary Journal, which was published from 2012 to 2021. Athena is a former co-host of the New Books in Poetry podcast via the New Books Network.
Listen on our host site, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and elsewhere.
The Loneliness Files is a groundbreaking memoir in essays that ultimately brings us together in its piercing, revelatory examination of how and why it is that we break apart.
In this episode, Athena mentions that she has shifted her writing from poetry to writing essays and prose. She found that she could not say what she needed to say through poetry, and after a while, she decided to start exploring new mediums for her work. She even says that many of her essays are tied to a song and that each song fueled her passion for what she has written.
The essays describe a feeling of loneliness that not many people are willing to address. During the lockdown, Athena found that she could no longer stay silent about these feelings, which had come to a head during lockdown. She was not only physically isolated, but she also found that she and everyone around her were socially isolated, too. A lot of that isolation had to do with our current culture. Beyond the lockdown, Athena poses that loneliness has infiltrated our pop culture and everyday lives.
In this podcast episode, Neva and Athena have a nuanced discussion of social media and how parasocial relationships create a ghost of a connection rather than fulfilling the actual human need for connection. Clicking “Like” and viewing someone's stories have taken the place of reaching out and nurturing individual relationships. One solution to this issue is to take a chance and start nurturing in-person relationships again.
They also discuss the parasocial relationships people create between the artist and the hobbyist. Whether through writing fanfiction, collecting novels, or attending conventions, they are all legitimate forms of connecting with favorite artists and the art itself.
Tune in to this episode of the Talking Writing podcast to hear more about loneliness, relationships, and the creation of thought-provoking art.