Elisabetta Villa/Getty Images

With great sadness, news came out yesterday that the extraordinary Katherine Dunn died due to complications of lung cancer.

Dunn, perhaps best know for the National Book Award-nominated novel about a circus sideshow, GEEK LOVE, also achieved acclaim as for her numerous articles on boxing, many of which were collected in ONE
RING CIRCUS: DISPATCHES FROM THE WORLD OF BOXING. She wrote SCHOOL OF HARD
KNOCKS: THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL IN AMERICA’S TOUGHEST BOXING GYMS, which garnered her the Dorothea Lange—Paul Taylor Award. In her forties, Dunn began boxing training and later famously fought off an assault by a man less than half her age.

In this 2009 photo, journalist and author, Katherine Dunn, makes a visit to one of boxing news sources at the Matt Dishman Community Center & Pool boxing gym, in Portland, Ore. (Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian via AP)

Her humorous columns from the WILLAMETTE WEEK were collected in THE SLICE:
INFORMATION WITH AN ATTITUDE and she supplied the text for 
DEATH
SCENES: A HOMICIDE DETECTIVE’S SCRAPBOOK. Dunn also penned the novels ATTIC and TRUCK.

Katherine Dunn will be missed by all who worked with and knew her. Dunn’s short story “Near-Flesh” will be part of a forthcoming Tachyon anthology.

Our thoughts go out to her son Eli Dapoloni.