This week Richard and Joe welcome Fred Dickey, a popular columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune who wrote about “ordinary people” with compelling stories in his Monday column “The Way We Are” for 5 years. He is a former top editor of major metro newspapers, a novelist, and a Pulitzer nominee. He has served as Sunday Editor, the San Jose Mercury News; Executive Editor, The Anchorage Times; Editor, the Oakland Tribune; and as an editorial manager of the San Diego Union. He has been a published novelist and a prolific magazine writer.

They discuss Fred’s new book “Stories with Faces: The Tightrope Lives of Next-Door People.” The columns Dickey has compiled in this book are about people, some famous, some not so famous, who have interesting accomplishments, but mostly just ordinary people. It’s the ordinary ones that he describes in such an evocative manner. It’s the ones who are having a difficult time in their lives that are most compelling. Sometimes it’s because of a serious illness, other times a stroke of bad luck, bad life choices, or even being born into a bad family situation.

Fred grew up in DeKalb, Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University (B.S.) and Norwich University (M.A.). Fred Dickey lives in Cardiff-by-the-Sea with his wife Kathleen (Kathy), a microbiologist whose name is on nine U.S. patents. Fred and Kathy share 4 children and 5 grandchildren. Fred travels the world and is a ceaseless California explorer. He is interested in history, especially the Civil War era, California history, and the Oregon Trail era.

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