Sheryl Cannady from the Library of Congress speaks with Eric Jerome Dickey, who appeared at the 2011 National Book Festival on September 24, 2011, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Eric Jerome Dickey has been a software engineer, an actor and a stand-up comedian. Then he discovered that writing was what he liked to do best. He started writing poetry and short stories, but he wasn’t satisfied with short-form writing: “I’d set out to do a 10-page story and it would go on for 300 pages,” he said. Since then, his work has landed many times on the best-seller lists of the New York Times, Essence and USA Today. His latest novel is “Tempted by Trouble” (NAL Trade).