Dwight Fryer began writing in the mid 1990s and his first novel, The Legend of Quito Road will be published in May 2006 on the Sepia imprint by BET BOOKS, a subsidiary of Black Entertainment Television. The Legend of Quito Road chronicles the story of a thirteen year old boy whose religious father teaches him to make illegal moonshine whiskey in 1932 Lucy, Tennessee. The themes of this historical novel show that the worst things wrong with most of us were planted there by those who love us best. “Making white lightning just gets in your bones,” Gill Erby told his only boy during their first trip to a whiskey still. That illicit knowledge transformed Son, as his momma Sarah called Raymond Simon Erby, from pure and innocent to cunning and calculating. The economic and emotional common ground of Prohibition-era illegal whiskey and cross-race relationships create the story’s tension.

Dwight holds a MS in Information Systems and Telecommunications Management from Christian Brothers University and a BBA in Accounting from the University of Memphis. Dwight attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the Hurston / Wright Writers Week to take Advanced Novel courses. He has also attended the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and The Oxford Conference for the book and has taught a workshop at the Memphis Black Writers’ Conference. He has twenty-five years business experience in transportation, manufacturing, and capital services in technology, finance, accounting, marketing, and leadership. He is a manager in the International Marketing Department of a major transportation firm based in Memphis, Tennessee. Dwight is an ordained Christian minister, a 2004 graduate of Leadership Memphis, a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., and serves on the Board of Directors of Memphis’ Porter-Leath Children’s Center and historic Zion-Christian Cemetery.

Dwight and his wife Linda live in a rural area near Memphis. His hobbies include reading, flying stunt kites on the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis, and tooling around the countryside in his ’69 Chevy Impala. They have an adult daughter.

Relationships, Personal Growth, Faith & Religion