Eric Jerome Dickey
Eric Jerome Dickey was born in Memphis, Tennessee and attended the University of Memphis (the former Memphis State), where he earned his degree in Computer System Technology. In 1983, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in engineering.
After landing a job in the aerospace industry as a software developer, Eric Jerome Dickey's artistic talents surfaced, inspiring him to become an actor and a stand-up comedian. Yet Eric quickly found out that writing was something he could do and do well. From creative writing classes to avidly consuming the works of his favorite authors, Eric Jerome Dickey began to shape a writing career of his own. Having written several scripts for his personal comedy act, he started writing poetry and short stories. "The film work gave me insight into character development, the acting classes helped me understand motivation...All of it goes hand in hand," Eric explains. He joined the IBWA (International Black Writers and Artists), participated in their development workshops, and became a recipient of the IBWA SEED Scholarship to attend UCLA's Creative Writing classes. In 1994 his first published short story, "Thirteen," appeared in the IBWA's River Crossing: Voices of the Diaspora-An Anthology of the International Black Experience. A second short story, "Days Gone By," was published in the magazine A Place to Enter.
With those successes behind him, Eric Jerome Dickey decided to fine-tune some of his earlier work and developed a screenplay called "Cappuccino." "Cappuccino" was directed and produced by Craig Ross, Jr. and appeared in coffee houses around the Los Angeles area. In February 1998, "Cappuccino" made its local debut during the Pan African Film Festival at the Magic Johnson Theater in Los Angeles.
Short stories, though, didn't seem to fulfill Eric Jerome Dickey's creative yearnings. Eric says, "I'd set out to do a ten-page story and it would go on for three hundred pages." So Eric kept writing and reading and sending out query letters for his novels for almost three years until he finally got an agent. "Then a door opened," Eric says. "And I put my foot in before they could close it." And that door has remained opened, as Eric Jerome Dickey's novels have placed him on the map as one of the best writers of contemporary urban fiction.
Eric Jerome Dickey's book signing tours for Sister, Sister; Friends and Lovers; Milk in My Coffee; Cheaters; and Liar's Game took him from coast to coast and helped propel each of these novels to #1 on the "Blackboard Bestsellers List." Cheaters was named "Blackboard Book of the Year" in 2000. In June 2000, Eric Jerome Dickey celebrated the French publication of Milk in My Coffee (Cafe Noisette) by embarking on a book tour to Paris. Soon after, Milk in My Coffee became a bestseller in France. Eric Jerome Dickey's novels, Chasing Destiny, Liar's Game, Between Lovers, Thieves' Paradise, The Other Woman, Drive Me Crazy, Genevieve, Naughty or Nice, Sleeping with Strangers, Waking with Enemies, and Pleasure have all earned him the success of a spot on The New York Times bestseller list. Liar's Game, Thieves' Paradise, The Other Woman, and Genevieve have also given Dickey the added distinction of being nominated for an NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Literary Work in 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005. In 2006, he was honored with the awards for Best Contemporary Fiction and Author of the Year (Male) at the 2006 African American Literary Award Show. In 2008, Eric was nominated for Storyteller of the Year at the 1st annual ESSENCE Literary Awards. In January 2001, Eric Jerome Dickey was a contributor to New American Library's anthology Got To Be Real: Four Original Love Stories, also a Blackboard Bestseller. He also had a story entitled “Fish Sanwich” appear in the anthology Mothers and Sons. In June 2002, Dickey contributed to Black Silk: A Collection of African American Erotica (Warner Books) as well as to Riots Beneath the Baobab (published by Inte
“Ownership, even in love, is an illusion. No woman owned any man and no man owned any woman.”
“the most painful good-byes were the ones that were never said, never explained”
“He says, “Your husband fucked my wife.”We look at each other and this time it’s different. Now I know him.“My husband didn’t fuck your wife.” My voice is soft. Not amorous, but the tone of a bewildered child. “They had a relationship, then came home and fucked us.”
“Most women got this thing called compassion. It doesn't make them foolish, just more forgiving. More capable of trying and hoping things worked out.”
“Losing your job is like having your identity stolen, like having what defined you run through a paper shredder. After a while the despair gets you, and it gets you good.”
“People know your tragedies and they treat you like you’re not human. Like you’re a three-headed goat. A monster from some other planet. They keep reminding you of your pain. You see how they look at me? They’re stuck on that person I used to be. They can’t see that old life as just a moment in time that I’ve moved on from. It was a horrible life.”
“It is silent, an anagram for listen. That is what I do. Listen while she remains silent.”
“It’s scary telling someone you care about, someone you love who you really are.”
“For some of us love comes into the room, kicks her shoes off, finds the most comfortable sofa, and lies down, rests, has no intention of going anywhere. For others love walks in smoking a cigarette, checking her watch every two seconds, jittery, with one hand on the doorknob, heart rate up, always in sprinter’s position, ready to run.”
“We see what we want to see. We idealize each other with our own fantasies.”
“She’s a smart woman. I love that. Intelligence is a wonderful and powerful aphrodisiac. To me, it enhances beauty, makes an ordinary woman look like a movie star.”
“find em, fool em, fuck em, forget em”
“Every man kills the things that he loves. Some with a look, some with flattery, the coward with a kiss.”
“You want to put a band-aid on something that needs stitches.”
“Resentment makes anything possible.”
“People pray for rain, then complain about the flood. They pray for it to stop raining, then bitch about the drought.”
“Once desire was turned on, combustion gave it a life of its own. Once it was turned on it became a raging wildfire, uncontrollable and uncontainable, the type of conflagration that had to be allowed to burn itself out.”
“I wish I had met you first. Before we met them.”
“Women were excited after sex, wired becasue in their minds the relationship was on beginning. Men went to sleep m the because for the orgasm had arrived and the relationship was done.”
“Physical attraction was about aesthetics, not sexual performance, not mental stimulation. Without a mental connection, a remarkable sexual performance yielded no lifelong guarantees. It was only lust. And lust was not love.”
“I deserved to find pleasure that surpassed my imagination, better than any I had experienced.”
“the easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself, for what a man wishes, he generally believes to be true!”
“intelligence is always intimidating to those who aren't!”
“not all thoughts have to become words!”
“common enemies make enemies become friends!”
“anger and jeaously are first cousins!”
“restrictions create frustrations!”
“don't call me stupid without calling me stupid and think I'd bee too stupid to notice!”
“the word love has no decent definition!”
“common sense is the enemy of romance”
“revenge knows no boundaries!”
“you had to have happiness to miss happiness!”
“don't take many words to break a fragile heart!”
“only a fool would argue with a fool!”
“with attachment comes pain!”
“not keeping a promise is the same as lying!”
“when a lie is repeated enough it becomes the truth!”
“jealously lives with insecurity!”
“paranoia, the first cousin of a bastard named fear”
“you are unimportant to the important!”
“wisdom ain't seeing what's in your face, but recognizing what's about to come!”
“wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to temptation!”
“can't blame a man for being human when human is all he'll ever be!”
“the only perfect people are dead people, because their the only ones who can't make mistakes!”
“safety and love are both illusions!”
“every day a million miracles begin at sunrise!”
“a full moon is a flashlight so everyone can see your drama!”
“Hate isn't healthy, it damages the hater more than the one who's hated!”
“it takes as long as three generations of hard work, three generations of sacrifice to correct the wrong!”
“changing horses doesn't mean the ride'll get any better!”