Biography
Breece Dexter Pancake was born in South Charleston, West Virginia, the youngest child of Clarence "Wicker" Pancake and Helen Frazier Pancake. He was raised in Milton, West Virginia. Pancake briefly attended West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon before transferring to Marshall University in Huntington, where he completed a bachelor's degree in English education in 1974. After graduating from Marshall he spent time in the western United States, visiting his sister in Santa Fe. As a graduate student he studied at the University of Virginia's creative writing program under John Casey and James Alan McPherson. Pancake also worked as an English teacher at two Virginia military academies, Fork Union and Staunton.
While attending the University of Virginia, Pancake deliberately styled himself as an uncultured hillbilly, distancing himself from the mostly erudite students at the prestigious school. He was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fishing, and camping. Pancake was a devout fan of the music of folk singer Phil Ochs, who had attended Staunton Military Academy, where Pancake later taught.
The unusual middle name "D'J" originated when The Atlantic Monthly misprinted his middle initials (D.J., for Dexter John) in the byline of Trilobites, a short story the magazine published in 1977. Pancake decided not to correct it. Dexter was Pancake's middle name; he took the name John after converting to Catholicism in his mid-20s.
Pancake died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Charlottesville, Virginia. Pancake was buried in Milton.
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