The telephone rang at our home in Dallas on my 50th birthday. It was John Lane, CBS News Vice President.

"I want you to stay in Dallas for now."

It was then that I knew my chances of a permanent assignment in New York had all but vanished. After 14 years as a foreign and domestic correspondent for CBS News, it was becoming increasingly clear my clock was running out on becoming another Dan Rather or a Charles Kuralt.

In all my nineteen years with CBS News I had never turned down an assignment, but I knew almost everything has an outer limit, and it was certain to me I was fast reaching mine. I saved and counted watermelon seeds from Israeli fruit stands in Jerusalem as I fantasized living and loving on Plum Lick. I sketched floor plans for a possible homestead, not knowing at the time, that in five short years, I would be sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of an ancestral house by the side of Plum Lick Creek in Bourbon County, Kentucky.

The View from Plum Lick is the story of what happened in the following seven years, our living and loving within the reach of John Donne's twin compasses, the anchoring of the "fixt foot" on a piece of land purchased 205 years ago by my great-great-great-grandfather, Joshua, in the valley of the Plum trees.

After The View from Plum Lick was first published in 1992 it quickly went into its second printing. The hardbound edition was produced in 1997. My second book, Follow the Storm (1993), is out of print but was completely rewritten and produced in 2002 in hardbound format as Follow the Storm: A Long Way Home. My fourth book, Peace at the Center (1994), was quickly followed by A Conversation with Peter Pence (1995), a hand-numbered limited edition.

Then came The Quiet Kentuckians (1996) and, in 1998, The University Press of Kentucky published my historical novel, The Scourges of Heaven. It is the first original fiction ever published by University Press and in 2004 it was re-released as a paperback.


Home Sweet Kentucky was co-authored in 1999 with my wife, Lalie, and in 2001 she and I co-authored Rivers of Kentucky, Now going into its sixth printing, it was a 2002 finalist for the Southeast Booksellers Association's Nonfiction Book of the Year.

Jesse Stuart - The Heritage, a popular biography of one of Kentucky's most prolific and beloved writers whose works are timeless. This book, through many heretofore unpublished letters and memos, gives Jesse's many fans a whole new insight to the great, prolific writer of prose and poetry. (This book is now out of print.)

In 2005, Kentucky - A State of Mind was produced by the couple who reminds us that the land stretching from central Appalachia through the Bluegrass to the Mississippi is rich in humor and self worth. Plainspoken, nonfiction storytelling with a dash of tall-tale telling, Kentucky - A State of Mind, is a book paying tribute to the individual, laying to rest the hillbilly stereotype.

Then, in 2008, David produced A Journal for Lalie - a book for men who have, or may someday have, prostate cancer, and equally for the women who will follow in Dick's footsteps as they negotiate the same rocky medical trail with their loved ones. It is David Dick's most personal book, yet one that will bring hope, laughter and inspiration to the thousands who have laughed and loved their way through his eleven previous books.

Let There Be Light - The Story of Rural Electrification in Kentucky was introduced in 2009 and tells the story of the humble beginnings, the early struggles, and the ultimate triumph of the electric cooperative idea in Kentucky. Much of the story is told by the individuals who lived it-men and women who recall the years of work to create the electric companies-and today's cooperative leaders who carry on a tradition that has changed the landscape of the Commonwealth ending the drudgery of former days.

Outhouse Blues is the thirteenth book from David Dick and is a song of humor and faith and love-a prayer for forgiveness, a chance to do better for all mankind and other creatures assembled.

Here on Plum Lick in Bourbon County, Kentucky, we've become a small but essential center for publishing. We want to hear from you. Give us a call on the Internet. We're a good little peaceful place on the Information Highway!