Paul Dickson

Paul Dickson is the author of more than 45 nonfiction books and numerous magazine articles. Although he has written on a variety of subjects from ice cream to kite flying to electronic warfare, he now concentrates on writing about 20th century history, baseball and the American language.

Dickson has also had ample experience as a speaker. He has done hundreds of radio and TV interviews about his many books on such shows as Good Morning America, the Today Show, CBS Morning News, the Osgood file, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition and the Tonight Show.

Besides speaking on the topics of his most recent books, he also talks about the writing life. Most recently, he has talked at the Smithsonian about how to write narrative non-fiction, the genre that has created such recent blockbusters as Longitude, Seabiscuit and The Perfect Storm.

He has spoken to a variety of trade, corporate and non-profit groups including the Design Build Institute, the Goddard Space Flight Center, the Maryland Library Association, the California Mortgage Bankers Association and the Aero Club of New England. His speaking engagements have also included a stint as a commentator on the American language on National Public Radio as well as appearances at such other prime venues as the Library of Congress, the National Geographic Society, the Pritzker Military Library and the National Archives.

Born in Yonkers, NY, Dickson graduated from Wesleyan University in 1961 and was honored as a Distinguished Alumnae of that institution in 2001. After graduation, he served in the U.S. Navy and later worked as a reporter for McGraw-Hill Publications. He is a contributing editor for Washingtonian magazine and a consulting editor at Merriam-Webster, Inc. He is a founding member and former president of Washington Independent Writers and a member of the National Press Club. He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.

His most recent book, published in February 2005 and written with Thomas B. Allen, The Bonus Army--An American Epic, is about the World War I veterans who first marched on, occupied and were subsequently driven from Washington in 1932. They were protesting the fact that the bonus promised them for their war time service was not scheduled to be paid until 1945. Their protest eventually led to the passage of the GI Bill.