Born in 1944, I grew up with my parents and three older sisters in Saginaw, Michigan. My childhood summers were spent at my family’s northern Michigan cabin in the Les Cheneaux Islands 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, carrying luggage, folk-singing at a local hotel—and meeting my future wife.
Graduation from pharmacy school brought an end to my carefree summers, and I got a real job as a pharmacist for a chain retailer. We eventually bought our own store—a small, 150-year-old pharmacy on Main Street in historical Downtown Rochester, Michigan.
Our family grew to four sons who I used as subjects for over a hundred poems and songs, recording on paper rather than film their childhood antics and adventures.
As they grew and began to move away I found I had the time and 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 hundreds of rejections, and then 26 revisions, Mackinac Passage: A Summer Adventure was bought in 1995 by a Michigan publisher. Two more Mackinac stories quickly followed. Then, by a simple extension into my family's past and 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 base ball (yes, two words) club. As ballists, we dress in period uniforms, speak in the vernacular of the day and compete with other clubs from around the Midwest. The gentlemanly rules are strictly enforced—no spitting, cursing or sliding. We wear no gloves or other protective gear but congratulate our fellow ballists with loud "Huzzah"s for fine catches or well-struck balls. 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 story, 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. The two boys, after walking their grandfather's newly re-established labyrinth garden, find themselves transported to 1935. Chased as trespassers, the boys become hoboes and travel Michigan, always searching for food, shelter and a way back home. They learn first hand the all-too prevalent struggles of that period.
Bulwick School: A Yankee Lad In London, is a post-9/11 story, was published in 2013. It deals with bullying in its many forms, from teasing to terrorism. This story stems from my 1966-67 school year in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I arrived for my fourth-year of pharmacy at the beginning of the Troubles and inadvertently became involved with that country's 1,000-year-old Anglo/Irish conflict.
In 2004 my wife and I moved after 35 years in Rochester to an old, lake 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 historical and writing subjects.
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Robert A. Lytle portrays William Henry Yates, founder of the Yates Cider Mill in Rochester, Michigan. "Settlers in the Stones" A Living History Walk Through at Mount Avon Cemetery on September 24, 2016. This video is presented by he Rochester-Avon Historical Society. Written and Produced by Deborah J. Larson, RAHS' Research Committee Chair.
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Below is an article and pictures about my role with the Vintage Base Ball League "The Grangers" from Rochester, Michigan. The pictures are from our game at the Jimmy John's Field in Utica, Michigan in June of 2017.
Jimmy John Field Grangers June 2017.pdf | |
File Size: | 552 kb |
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