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Biography . . .
Athol Dickson’s novels have been favorably compared to the work of Octavia Butler (by
Publisher’s Weekly), Daphne du Maurier (by Cindy Crosby, FaithfulReader.com) and
Flannery O’Connor (by The New York Times).
The name “Athol” is Scottish, and is pronounced with a long "A" and "O", like "eighth-ol" with
the accent on the first syllable. In the same year Albert Einstein died, Rosa Parks made
history and Disneyland was founded, Athol Dickson was born in Oklahoma to a traveling
salesman and his wife. His first bed was a drawer lined with towels in a travel trailer. When he
was three months old his family settled in Texas, where he lived until a recent move to
southern California. He has worked as a newspaper boy, taco bender, clothing salesman,
carpenter, bartender, dental instrument maker, architect, and writer, roughly in that order. He
speaks enough Spanish to kid around with waiters and cab drivers during his frequent trips
to Mexico with his wife of twenty-five years.
During his late teens and early twenties, Athol immersed himself in the hippie culture of the
times, which led to a downward spiral of amphetamine addiction, heavy drinking and violence.
Hoping to reform himself, Athol turned to Zen Buddhism, but it was a decision to explore the
New Testament and the beautiful narrative he discovered there about love and forgiveness
that changed his life. He has been a flawed but committed follower of Jesus Christ ever since,
and considers himself living proof of the power of a story.
Athol wrote his first two novels while practicing architecture as a founding partner in a firm. In
the mid 1990’s, Athol began studying the Torah under the tutelage of the senior rabbi at one
of the largest Reform Jewish congregations in the United States. After five years among the
Jews at temple he wrote a bestselling memoir, The Gospel According to Moses, which
describes what the experience taught him about his own religion. Eventually Athol left
architecture to devote himself to writing full time. His third novel, They Shall See God, a
Christy Award finalist in the suspense category, was published soon afterward. His next
novel, River Rising, was a Christy Award winner, selected as one of the Booklist Top Ten
Christian Novels of 2006 and a finalist for Christianity Today's Best Novel of 2006. In 2008
the unabridged audio version won the Audio Publishers Association's coveted Audie Award.
Following River Rising, Athol’s The Cure was picked by Christian Fiction Review as one of the
Ten Best Novels of 2007 and it garnered Athol a second Christy Award for suspense. The
journalist and Christianity Today fiction critic Cindy Crosby wrote: “Dickson adeptly handles
his Maine setting, capturing the idioms and idiosyncrasies of its inhabitants. His characters
are original and multifaceted, and sometimes perplexing . . . . The plot is intriguing and fresh,
and as he did in River Rising and They Shall See God, Dickson creates a series of twists and
turns that continue surprising readers through the very last pages. What is more difficult to
quantify is Dickson’s amazing ability to create a chilling atmosphere . . . . If Alfred Hitchcock
was still alive, he’d be banging down Dickson’s door to make movies of his novels.”
Winter Haven, Athol’s sixth novel and his second set in Maine, was a Christy Award finalist. It
was honored by Romantic Times as a “Top Pick”, and received a starred review from Library
Journal. Athol's seventh novel, Lost Mission, was his fifth novel in a row to be selected as a
Christy Award finalist, and his third to win the award.
Athol's latest novel is The Opposite of Art, which Pulitzer Prize winning author Maurice
Possley called, "a fascinating and magical journey into the worlds of art and faith, murder and
intrigue," and Publisher's Weekly called "a quest novel tinged with the supernatural, allegory,
and metaphysical leanings [with] much to ponder."
Athol Dickson’s novels have been favorably compared to the work of Octavia Butler (by
Publisher’s Weekly), Daphne du Maurier (by Cindy Crosby, FaithfulReader.com) and
Flannery O’Connor (by The New York Times).
The name “Athol” is Scottish, and is pronounced with a long "A" and "O", like "eighth-ol" with
the accent on the first syllable. In the same year Albert Einstein died, Rosa Parks made
history and Disneyland was founded, Athol Dickson was born in Oklahoma to a traveling
salesman and his wife. His first bed was a drawer lined with towels in a travel trailer. When he
was three months old his family settled in Texas, where he lived until a recent move to
southern California. He has worked as a newspaper boy, taco bender, clothing salesman,
carpenter, bartender, dental instrument maker, architect, and writer, roughly in that order. He
speaks enough Spanish to kid around with waiters and cab drivers during his frequent trips
to Mexico with his wife of twenty-five years.
During his late teens and early twenties, Athol immersed himself in the hippie culture of the
times, which led to a downward spiral of amphetamine addiction, heavy drinking and violence.
Hoping to reform himself, Athol turned to Zen Buddhism, but it was a decision to explore the
New Testament and the beautiful narrative he discovered there about love and forgiveness
that changed his life. He has been a flawed but committed follower of Jesus Christ ever since,
and considers himself living proof of the power of a story.
Athol wrote his first two novels while practicing architecture as a founding partner in a firm. In
the mid 1990’s, Athol began studying the Torah under the tutelage of the senior rabbi at one
of the largest Reform Jewish congregations in the United States. After five years among the
Jews at temple he wrote a bestselling memoir, The Gospel According to Moses, which
describes what the experience taught him about his own religion. Eventually Athol left
architecture to devote himself to writing full time. His third novel, They Shall See God, a
Christy Award finalist in the suspense category, was published soon afterward. His next
novel, River Rising, was a Christy Award winner, selected as one of the Booklist Top Ten
Christian Novels of 2006 and a finalist for Christianity Today's Best Novel of 2006. In 2008
the unabridged audio version won the Audio Publishers Association's coveted Audie Award.
Following River Rising, Athol’s The Cure was picked by Christian Fiction Review as one of the
Ten Best Novels of 2007 and it garnered Athol a second Christy Award for suspense. The
journalist and Christianity Today fiction critic Cindy Crosby wrote: “Dickson adeptly handles
his Maine setting, capturing the idioms and idiosyncrasies of its inhabitants. His characters
are original and multifaceted, and sometimes perplexing . . . . The plot is intriguing and fresh,
and as he did in River Rising and They Shall See God, Dickson creates a series of twists and
turns that continue surprising readers through the very last pages. What is more difficult to
quantify is Dickson’s amazing ability to create a chilling atmosphere . . . . If Alfred Hitchcock
was still alive, he’d be banging down Dickson’s door to make movies of his novels.”
Winter Haven, Athol’s sixth novel and his second set in Maine, was a Christy Award finalist. It
was honored by Romantic Times as a “Top Pick”, and received a starred review from Library
Journal. Athol's seventh novel, Lost Mission, was his fifth novel in a row to be selected as a
Christy Award finalist, and his third to win the award.
Athol's latest novel is The Opposite of Art, which Pulitzer Prize winning author Maurice
Possley called, "a fascinating and magical journey into the worlds of art and faith, murder and
intrigue," and Publisher's Weekly called "a quest novel tinged with the supernatural, allegory,
and metaphysical leanings [with] much to ponder."
Athol Dickson
author