Today we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Dickson.
Hi Kevin, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Australia, but after my first trip to Los Angeles, I knew I’d found my home. It took a few years to get here, but as an entertainment journalist at the turn of the century, visas were pretty easy to get. At the time, I was working for notable newspapers around the world – The Australian, the London Times – but eventually the freelance market dried up and I began to work at a startup tabloid called In Touch. My job was to try to verify stories and work directly with celebrity publicists – not the most pleasant of tasks. Eventually, in late 2005, I began to work with a mousy, dull girl named Kim Kardashian, and for the next eight years, I worked with her family on their magazine coverage. It was a heady time. Sunset Blvd was on fire, the clubs were packed, and a new scandal popped up almost nightly. I also covered reality TV, which sent me around the world covering Survivor, which was incredible fun, and saw me do a guest host stint on shows like Paris Hilton Is My New BFF and Hell’s Kitchen, which wasn’t as much fun. During this time, I bought a house in the hills of Eagle Rock, which I still live in today. Eventually, my job required me to relocate to New York City, which was fine for two years, but it was no match for Los Angeles, and I returned. Around that time, my relationship with the Kardashians soured, and, burnt out and disillusioned, I quit the tabloid industry. I formed a punk band called The Chew Toys, and we made an album and played a bunch of shows before imploding. Around that time, I ghostwrote a book for a Bravo Housewife and started work on a novel based on my time at the tabloids, a dark Los Angeles romance noir. I conceived the book with a friend, a publicist. We were both surprised when the book, Blind Item, sold to a major publisher, and even more surprised when it made the LA Times bestseller list. A sequel, Guilty Pleasure, followed a year later. That same year, 2018, I married the love of my life, my husband George, and I weathered the deaths of my mother and my beloved dog. For the next couple of years, I had an agent who had me write a memoir of my time working with the Kardashians, but it failed to sell because the legal departments at the interested publishers all balked at the potential for litigation. During pandemic, I decided to finally write the book that I had always wanted to write, a darkly humorous vampire romantic thriller, about an all-female vampire world. I had to base the book in New York for a million reasons, which felt slightly like cheating on L.A. The book is called From Him To Eternity, and I released it in August 2022 on Amazon. The sequel is currently off with my editor, and I’m hard at work on the final book in that trilogy. My husband and I both love going to rock shows, so a couple nights a week we will be out at a venue, usually Zebulon, or Chain Reaction down in OC. We have three gorgeous dogs and a moody parrot and don’t usually venture too far from Eagle Rock unless we have to.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No road is ever smooth. My pathway to immigration was really tricky, I got approved for my green card the week before 9/11 and it took three more years for it to get finalized. Working at a tabloid was a challenge after working for legitimate press for so long, but I had a mortgage and few options. Having my family halfway around the world was not ideal, flying back and forth to Australia as both my parents began to fail. The day that my second novel released, my mother was admitted to hospital. I flew home immediately, staying there until she passed. This caused me to miss the press cycle for that book, and it tanked. Having major publishers talk about big offers for my tell-all, only to have the offers all dry up once the legal department got involved, was disappointing and annoying. So now, I do everything by myself, for myself, and I’m ready to play a long game and it feels much better.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve always written. I love to write and create worlds. I also love to meet people; I find most people fascinating and love learning about them… As an entertainment journalist, I got to interview massive stars and that was fine, but it was usually talking to scientists and artists that proved more satisfying. As an interviewer, I’m a good listener and an incisive questioner, and I had great experiences with artists as diverse as Quentin Tarantino and Diplo. I’m a lifelong music obsessive, and I’d always dreamed of making an album, so I set that challenge for myself in 2014, and I’m incredibly proud of the result. That band went out and played with the bands we loved, and it was a trial by fire to be able to hold my own against local noise merchants like Lamps. The album we made is a dirty, heavy, funny, scuzzy punk record and I’m still kind of in shock that I pulled it off. I like to be in a dialog with people who buy that album, and I also love to correspond with people who like my books. I’m really insanely proud of my newest book, From Him To Eternity, because it’s all me, with help from my friends. My friend Amanda Bigford did the cover, my husband handles the press, and my cousin Skye is editing the new book. I’ve created a world of characters that I own and it’s a world I’ll be happy to explore for years to come.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
As a die-hard lifelong punk fan, it surprised me that during lockdown, I discovered jazz. And when I say discovered, I mean, I went into a full-on deep-dive rabbit hole obsession. I lost my mind to Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Cannonball Adderley, Muriel Grossmann and so many more. Possibly related, I also began a daily yoga practice and largely quit drinking. A lot of my friends don’t know what to do with me these days.
Pricing:
- From Him To Eternity – $19.99 paperback
- From Him to Eternity – $9.99 kindle
- Chew Toys LP – $10
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @kevin.dickson.author
- Other: https://thechewtoys.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
George Castro
Larry Eberhard
