Mike Diccicco graduated from La Salle College in Philadelphia with a degree in English and a burning desire to write award-winning radio commercials and TV spots. Today, after more than four decades in the advertising business, Mike has turned his energies toward the writing of fiction.
Beyond All Sense and Reason is Mike’s debut novel, a story of teenage interracial friendships set in the Civil Rights era in Birmingham, Alabama. One of eleven children, Mike lived in Birmingham during the heart of its struggles for racial equality and justice; he has never forgotten the many everyday heroes of that momentous period in American history.
Using a character from his novel, Mike has also written a short story entitled "The Bus Rider," which was awarded fifth prize among 6700 entries in a national Writer’s Digest competition. In addition to short stories, two published on this website, Mike is currently working on a second novel.
Married since 1975 to his wife Fran, the couple divides their time between their home in Pennsylvania and their condo on the Jersey shore. They have a daughter, Mariliz, and a son, Michael.
Life can be complicated when you're a fifteen-year-old white male, with eight siblings, a twin sister, a best friend who's African American, and a racist girlfriend who's the daughter of an arrogant, hot-tempered member of the Ku Klux Klan. Especially if you're growing up in 1963, the Civil Rights era, in Birmingham, Alabama, a place once widely known as the Most Segregated City in America.
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This is the hometown of Mickey McQuade, his twin sister Marti, and Mickey's best friend Jackie Thomas, ordinary teenagers living in extraordinary times, forced to confront an unstable, hate-laden, and sometimes violent world.
Beyond All Sense and Reason is the debut novel of Mike Diccicco, award-winning Philadelphia ad copywriter turned author, someone who grew up during the sixties in Birmingham, who lived through a time of anger, bigotry and tumult, and who still remembers the heroic people and historic moments that changed American society forever.