"You just try to absorb as much as you can from someone who has won as many races and championships as he has. Career wise, he's been the greatest thing that's happened to me." -- Larry Dixon
Larry Dixon (born July 28, 1966) is a fantasy artist and novelist.
"Because we're sponsored by competing breweries there is always competition. When we were both fighting for ninth or 10th place, nobody really cared except the two companies.""Being happy is very important. We won our second championship last season and we have our entire team coming back to try and defend our title again. I'm very proud of that.""But since we've been fighting for first or second place, it's grabbed the media's attention. I enjoy racing them. They are a good team and when you beat them it's something to be proud of.""How important has Phil Jackson been to the success of the Lakers? He's very important.""I don't think I ever set my goals that high. As a kid growing up I just wanted an opportunity to race and to be able to make a living doing it. It just came together.""I don't think there is anything owed to us. You've got to go out and work hard for every round win.""I never thought I'd live this long. It sounds funny because I still think of myself as a kid.""I think it's an extremely important factor to have your team together. It goes back to having distractions. When you all stay together for a period of time you're not training people or feeling out different personalities.""If two people were exactly alike, one of them would be unnecessary.""Snake has been everything to me. Look at where I was when I started with the company in 1988 and where I'm at now. I mean, he's shown me just about everything on and off the race track.""The advantage is I have my family with me all the time. When your daughter takes her first steps or says her first words and your son is going through potty training, I'm not missing any of those things.""The championship always goes to the team that wins the most rounds and is the most prepared. I think everybody on our team works hard towards keeping that goal. Time will tell if we're prepared or not.""The same things we've done the past couple of seasons. We've worked on the engine and clutch. We'll try and pick up the performance and consistency of the car and go back out there.""Time will tell how you rate against the rest of the competition. I'll let everyone else worry about championships. I'm going to worry about qualifying at Pomona.""We're going to test with the same car, but we have a new car ready.""When you've been driving in the top category for 10 years, you're obviously not a kid any more. You know, I'm married now and I've got two kids. That let's you know you're getting older.""Winning teams have the least amount of distractions. They have a really tight group of people working towards the same common goal.""You don't have to find out what someone's mechanical abilities are. All those factors are already a known commodity. I've seen teams win championships and have their entire team quit the next day because they weren't happy."
Dixon, the son of a Delta Force career commando, studied at The North Carolina School of the Arts and at Savannah College of Art & Design. In 1992, he married fantasy author Mercedes Lackey; they live in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. Larry, a sports car enthusiast, is also a storm spotter and volunteer firefighter. He can often be found rushing to the scene of any disaster where people need help...usually with truckloads of supplies.
Dixon has contributed artwork to Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons source books, including Oriental Adventures, Epic Level Handbook, and Fiend Folio. His skill with depicting birds of prey has often led to commissions with the United States Military and with Save Our American Raptors, an organization devoted to raptor rehabilitation.
As a birds-of-prey rehabilitation specialist, Dixon, along with Lackey, has returned over four hundred hawks, owls, falcons and corbies into the wild. He is currently working toward his falconry license with his friend Cheyenne, a horned owl.
Larry's wildlife rehabilitation led to a minor role in the creation of the digital effects for the giant eagles in the Lord of the Rings movies. Dixon took digital photographs of a stuffed golden eagle he is currently keeping for its owner, a local tribal elder. These photographs, along with castings of the beak and talons, were sent to Weta Digital in New Zealand to provide texture mapping for the digital model for Gwaihir and company.
Larry is a frequent guest at fantasy, art, and comic conventions. Guest of Honor appearances include ICON 17 (1992), Odyssey-con (2001), CONvergence (2005), FenCon II (2005), Swancon (2006), CAPEday (2007), and many more. He is scheduled to appear at Dragon Con (Atlanta) and CONvergence in 2008.
