Meet historical fiction author Dwight Fryer

Author Dwight Fryer

Fryer shares from his twenty-five years of business experience in leadership, technology, finance, accounting, marketing and publishing. He has written two critically acclaimed novels. The Legend of Quito Road and The Knees of Gullah Island. Dwight speaks about life, healthcare, business, leadership, history, literature, community and storytelling. The University of Memphis teaches The Legend of Quito Road in its Masters of Fine Arts Program in the English Department.

Dwight Fryer has inspired audiences at universities, corporations, schools, faith communities and nonprofit organizations. His passion is to help people do all they can to succeed and use his experiences to inspire others.

Fryer was diagnosed with cancer two days after a 1998 layoff. In 2001, the disease meningococcal meningitis took his youngest daughter’s life. He works as an advocate for immunization against bacterial meningitis with the National Meningitis Association. He survived a wreck caused by a driver under the influence.

Contact him today for details on how he can share at your next event via email at  author@dwightfryer.com. Website: http://www.dwightfryer.com

 
Q: What inspired you to write these stories?
My first novel was inspired by a economics paper I wrote in graduate school about a drug dealer, his massive initial economic success, and the life prison terms he eventually received for his risk taking schemes in the drug trade. When I began to research this story for the novel form, I felt a need to go to the root of the problem, illegal whiskey.

The Legend of Quito Road called to me early in the mornings of most days until I finally obeyed and wrote the book. The Knees of Gullah Island shares the family history and readers learn what happened to Gillam Hale. He was Son Erby’s grandpa by his second family after his first was taken and sold away.

I wish the modern reader knew more about their origins. This would help us unlock some of the mystery of who we are and who our children can become.

Q: What issues in today's society have you addressed in your books?
Both of my books speak to the modern reader in numerous ways. In The Legend of Quito Road, the theme is “the worst things wrong with most of us were planted by those who love us the best.” Isn’t that how our bad habits are passed on to us? We know that is how we get many of the great things we have learned, but, too often, we overlook the traits our forebears pass on that should not be present in our lives. I want readers to examine how they live and ask why is this what I view as right.

In the second novel, The Knees of Gullah Island, I advise readers to be careful of money.  Money quite often catches people up, so the wisdom Scripture that I use here is 1 Timothy 6:10; and to paraphrase it, it says that the love of money is the root of all evil, and those that find themselves in pursuit of it get caught in all types of snares. We find here that Gillam Hale, the main character of this story, loved money. We are forced to recognize that white people, and black people, and any other color people that own people love money more than they do mankind, more than even themselves. Because of the money that can be made in something as illicit as slavery, we often forget that people are people, and that they have rights concerns. All persons have a rich story of their own to tell, and it should not be involving some other person controlling them. So this book talks about that love of money.

Gillam Hale also was from a religious family, a good person; but he got so caught up in the love of money, and when things went bad for him, Gillam Hale did not pray.  So bent knees do straight and crooked deeds, and what is slavery but one of the most crooked deed that all the crooked deeds that mankind can do. We are still having slavery stories today? Wasn’t Jaycee Dugard a slave for the past eighteen years?

I want us to look at these historic tales and see how the themes reverberate in our modern lives. Slavery, love, treachery, hatred, trickery, humor, great soul food, church history, drug use and sales, Southern history, domestic violence, disparities within the criminal justice system, legal rights of children born without the blessing of marriage, and illicit sexual conduct are just a few of the topics covered.

Q: Thousands of books are published each year. What sets your books apart from other in your genre?
I am producing quality stories suitable for young and old to read. These books have great wisdom lessons and are filled with startling story lines and unforgettable characters. A major university has taught my work in their Masters of Fine Arts program in the English Department. That is rare air for any writer in any genre.

Contact author Dwight Fryer today for details on how he can share at your next event via email at author@dwightfryer.com.  Website: http://www.dwightfryer.com

The Legend of Quito Road by Dwight Fryer
ISBN-13: 9781583147061  |  ISBN: 1583147063
Pick up a copy at Barnes and Noble
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Legend-of-Quito-Road/Dwight-Fryer/e/9781583147061/?itm=1

The Knees of Gullah Island by Dwight Fryer
ISBN: 0373831196  |  ISBN-13: 9780373831197
Pick up a copy at Barnes and Noble
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Knees-of-Gullah-Island/Dwight-Fryer/e/9780373831197

Both books are filled with rich historical details and spiritual truths that are applicable to the modern reader.