Robert A. Lytle

Robert A. Lytle

I was born in 1944 and grew up with my parents and three sisters in Saginaw, Michigan. My childhood summers were spent at my family's northern Michigan cabin near Mackinac Island where days were spent in its idyllic splendor--fishing, hiking, swimming and boating. My college summers were spent on nearby Mackinac Island working on the yacht dock, tying up boats, carrying luggage, folk-singing at a local hotel--and meeting my future wife.

Graduation from pharmacy school brought an end to the carefree summers, and I got a real job as a retail pharmacist. We eventually bought our own store--a 150-year-old pharmacy in Rochester, Michigan.

Our family grew to four sons who I used as subjects for over a hundred poems and songs to record their childhood antics and adventures.

As they grew and began to move away I found I had the inclination to write a novel. "Write what you know" is the mantra authors are told to follow, so I decided to explore my northern Michigan experiences and embellish them into a story.

After 26 revisions and hundreds of rejections Mackinac Passage: A Summer Adventure was published in 1995. Two more Mackinac stories quickly followed. Then, by a simple extension into Rochester lore, I came to write the time-travel adventure, Three Rivers Crossing, published in 2000. A fourth Mackinac story, The Mystery At Round Island Light, followed in 2001.

In 2000 I joined the Rochester Grangers, a vintage baseball club. Ballists, as we are called, dress in period uniforms, speak in the vernacular of the day and compete with other clubs from around the Midwest. We play by the gentlemanly rules of the 1840s and '50s--no spitting, cursing or sliding--or gloves. Baseball, the Civil War and life in a Northern state at that time became the subjects of my next novel, A Pitch In Time. Published in December 2002, it was runner-up for the prestigious Ben Franklin Award.

A fifth Mackinac Passage: Pirate Party, featuring the 1812 attack by the British forces upon Fort Mackinac, was published in 2005.

Mr. Blair's Labyrinth, a time-travel, Great Depression-era story featuring my historic home, one of its gardens and two of my grandsons, was published in 2011.

Bulwick School: A Yankee Lad In London, a post-9/11 story, was published in 2013. It deals with bullying in its many forms, from teasing to terrorism.

In 2004 my wife and I moved to an old house in Lake Orion, Mi. The events surrounding that move prompted me to write the picture book, "Our Cherry Tree," which was published in 2015.

When not actively writing I visit schools and organizations to discuss a variety of subjects. Visit me at www.robertalytle.weebly.com for more information.