DOBSON, Frank E. 1952-

PERSONAL: Born July 3, 1952, in Buffalo, NY; son of Frank Everette (a steelworker) and Willa Mae Banks (a homemaker, domestic, and factory worker) Dobson; married Marla High (divorced); married Dioncia Coffey (an administrator), July 27, 1991; children: Jasmin Nicole. Ethnicity: "African American." Education: State University of New York at Buffalo, B.A., 1973; University of Nevada, M.A., 1975; Bowling Green State University, Ph.D. (English), 1985. Hobbies and other interests: "Weight lifting, music, travel, spirituality."

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435. E-mail—frank.dobson@wright.edu.

CAREER: Ohio University Academic Administration Center, assistant director, 1979-81; Lafayette College Prep Program, director, 1981-84; Wright State University, Dayton, OH, director of Bolinga Cultural Center, 1984-90, associate professor of English, 1994—; Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, PA, college administrator, 1990-91; Indiana University, Indianapolis, assistant professor of English, 1991-94. Affiliated with Antioch Writers Workshop.

MEMBER: Associated Writing Programs, Popular Culture Society.

AWARDS, HONORS: Hurston-Head Fiction Award, Chicago State University, 1994; Master Artists Award, Montgomery County, OH, 1996.

WRITINGS:

The Race Is Not Given, Sterlinghouse (Pittsburgh, PA), 1999.

Contributor of a short story and poetry to Warpland and Shooting Star Review. Contributor of nonfiction to various periodicals, including Public Voices; contributor to books, including Contemporary African American Novelists and Dictionary of Literary Biography.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Of Men and Masks, a short-story collection; Climbing, a novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Frank E. Dobson told CA: "I am a black, working-class college professor who was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. The themes within my creative work center around the quest for identity, particularly, how to live one's life on one's own terms. For me, the negotiation of this is mental, physical, and spiritual. And my protagonists/characters have to try to work this out, given all of the baggage (failures and even crippling successes) that they carry."