ANSA: Robert Pielke

Welcome to another week of ANSA!!  This week Robert Pielke has stopped by during one of his book blog tours.  Check out the rest of the tour stops here or here.

Robert Pielke is a self-published, adult fiction author with a Type-A personality.  He lived in Baltimore, Maryland and just released book 2 in his current trilogy, A New Birth of Freedom.  He began writing after his passion for Cowboy and Indian films grew into creating his own version.  "As soon as I could use a pencil, I’ve been writing.  I recall in elementary school trying to construct humorous examples for the use of adjectives and adverbs for my homework, and I enjoyed reading them to the class!  It was during this time that I began – and finished my first “book”!  As a kid, I went to the movies every weekend to see whatever was showing.  It didn’t matter what it was, I’d be there.  And I’d always wind up ‘playing a role” from the movie– in my mind if not in reality – until the next weekend’s film.  And it usually wasn’t a role from the film, it was “me” being in the reality portrayed in film.  But when it came to “cowboys and Indians” in these movies I gradually became disturbed by the fact that the Indians were always “bad” and the cowboys were always “good.”  There were a very few films – not many, to be sure -- that had a different take on this.  Well, in the absence of any other films to speak of, I began imagining new scenarios for cowboys and Indians and played out these roles in my mind – and with the other kids I hung out with.  After I learned how to write and how to use my mother’s Remington typewriter, I wrote a story, White Cloud, about an Indian who united all the Plains tribes along with all the Eastern tribes in the early seventeenth century to resist the European invasion.  (It was 3 pages long, one paragraph and single spaced.) I was in the fourth or fifth grade."

His favorite authors include Ambrose Bierce, Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck, Charles Bukowski, Robert Heinlein, C. Clark, Bram Stoker, and H.G.Wells.

Here's his official bio...

Robert Pielke, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, now lives in Claremont, California. He earned a B.A. in History at the University of Maryland, an M. Div. in Systematic Theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from the Claremont Graduate School.

He taught on ground and online for countless years at George Mason University in Virginia, El Camino College in California and online for the University of Phoenix. Now happily retired from “the job,” he is doing what he always wanted to do since he wrote his first novel at ten in elementary school. It was one paragraph, three pages long and, although he didn’t know it at the time, it was alternate history.

His academic writings have been in the area of ethics, including a boring academic treatise called Critiquing Moral Arguments, logic, and popular culture. Included in the latter is an analysis of rock music entitled You Say You Want a Revolution: Rock Music in American Culture. He has also published short stories, feature articles, film and restaurant reviews. His novels include a savagely satirical novel on America and its foibles, proclivities and propensities, Hitler the Cat Goes West, and an alternate history, science fiction novel, The Mission.

Most recently, he has updated and revised his book on rock music, which is being republished by McFarland & Co.

He swims daily, skis occasionally, cooks as an avocation, watches innumerable movies, collects rock and roll concert films, is an avid devotee of Maryland crabs and maintains a rarely visited blog filled with his social and political ravings. His favorite film is the original Hairspray; his favorite song is “A Day in the Life”; his favorite pizza is from the original Ledo Restaurant in College Park, MD; and he is a firm believer in the efficacy of “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” Somehow his family and friends put up with him.

A New Birth of Freedom: The Translator (Book 2)

Book Blurb:

Noam Chomsky argues that communication with aliens would be impossible. Stephen Hawking argues that it would be extremely unwise even to try. What if it were absolutely necessary to do so? This question arises with extreme urgency at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, in this time-travel, alternate-history trilogy, A New Birth of Freedom.

Pick up a copy of Book 1 or Book 2 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Whiskey Creek Press.  Check out Robert's various ideas and projects on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Goodreads, and Tribute Books Facebook. Happy ANSA day!