Fielding Dawson

Fielding Dawson (August 2, 1930 – January 5, 2002, aged 71) was a Beat-era author of short stories and novels, and a student at Black Mountain College.

He was also a painter and collagist whose works were seen in several books of poetry and many literary magazines.

His lack of deference toward tradition in writing, other than that of the necessity to evoke humanity, often painfully raw, is what puts him in the category of many of his better-known contemporaries, such as Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg.

He had become a teacher, first in prisons like Sing Sing, at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, where he taught regularly, and continuing on to work with at-risk students at Upward Bound High School in Hartwick, New York.

He was recently called "The Best St. Louis Writer You've Never Read" by David Clewell, a professor of history at Webster University.