About

Gerald (Jerry) DiPego was captured early in life by stories, reading the Tarzan books and works by Jules Verne, Robert Lewis Stevenson, and was caught and held by films on television. Gobbling up stories of all kinds, he finally asked himself, could I do that? Could I MAKE a story? By age twelve he was reading his first tries to some of his grade-school friends.  He has never stopped.

DiPego was born in Chicago and raised in rural Illinois, where his father (who emigrated from Italy at the age of 19) opened a grocery store. He graduated from NIU in journalism and worked on several papers, then spent a year at University of Missouri learning to write for the screen, all the while sending his stories to magazines and finally beginning to make sales.  He started a novel, wrote a screenplay, and headed for L.A. with his first wife and first son, their possessions pressed into a Volkswagon Bug.

With money running short, the screenplay landed on the right desk, and he found himself becoming a script doctor with Universal Studios for television movies, then, proving himself, began to get his own assignments.  At this time, he was also continuing that novel, which was accepted by McGraw-Hill in 1977.  He later went on to write three more books, culminating in “Cheevey,” published in 1996 by Little, Brown, a top pick of the New England Booksellers Association.

He continued writing movies for TV until he moved into feature films, writing the screenplays for movies including “Sharky’s Machine,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Phenomenon,” “The Forgotten,” and “Words and Pictures.”

Later, he branched out into short story writing, and also wrote and produced stage plays. He has enjoyed numerous speaking engagements over the years, reading his short stories, directing live performances of his stage plays, and teaching the craft of creative writing, to crowds in Santa Barbara County, Salt Lake City, Napa, and Los Angeles. He has also taught at the Rocaberti Writer’s Retreat at the medieval Marouatte Castle in the Dordogne, France.

Gerald DiPego Reads Fighting

This five minute clip was recorded at Tales from the Tavern in Santa Ynez, California in 2010.

He currently lives in the Santa Ynez Valley with his artist/singer wife, Christine.  In their travels they have visited his relatives in Lucca, Italy, and he has enjoyed many hiking and horse-packing adventures with friends and with his two sons, Justin and Zachary, who are also writers.

His writing continues with short stories and the completion of a novel, as he awaits production of his newest screenplay at Patriot Films.