Novelist Richard Dry
 
 

   The Writer's Eye

Writers view the world from a different perspective - every event is a story - every person is a character of varied facets and history.  Richard Dry views his world with a writer's eye, finding the black struggle for equality during the '50's and '60's a compelling and personal story. A black caregiver, Ruby, considered him a son, and helped to open his eyes to the economic and social disparities. As an adult working with emotionally disturbed and abused children, Dry became inspired to tell the stories of children whose childhood gave them little hope of a happy future.

Leaving, his critically acclaimed and award-winning debut novel, traces the travails of Ruby and her half brother as they try to survive in California in the '60's through the '90's. The story resonates with all who had to leave a special place, their family or the chains of a miserable childhood. The Baltimore Sun says, "Rich and fluid. Starkly poetic, raw and intensely moving, "Leaving" proffers not just a report on African-American lives, but an indictment of urban life in the U.S."

Richard Dry is a full-time faculty member in the English Department at Las Positas College.

He is a former Mental Health Assistant working with emotionally disturbed youth. His novel won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation and Intersection for the Arts and was nominated for the Pushcart editors' Prize.

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