R. L. Peterson, first national publication was “A Penny for Your Thoughts” in Seventeen Magazine when he was seventeen, and in Marine Corps bootcamp. This earned him thirty-five dollars and one hour of standing in front of his Drill Instructor’s Hut, yelling “My name is Private Peterson, not Ernest Hemingway.”

·         This sharecropper’s son, college dropout and sober drunk, has written 5 books on salesmanship; his nonfiction has appeared in twenty-three newspapers including the Kansas City Star, Chicago Tribune.

·         His fiction has been published in seventy-five-plus journals and publications: Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Stoneslide Collective, Ravens Perch, Charles Carter, A Working Anthology, Collateral Journal, Twin Bill, Deadly Writers Patrol, and Annals of America among other publications.

·         His After Midnight – A Short Story Collection, (Pallamary Publishing), debuted in 2020.

·         His novel, Leave the Night to God (Pact Press), runner up for the Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Literature, was released in November 2022.

·         As a Marine, Peterson served at American embassies in 3 foreign countries – Tehran, Iran, Beirut, Lebanon, Stanleyville, Belgian Congo, (now Central African Republic).

·         Peterson served seven months in the White House during the Eisenhower Administration – with frequent face time with the president, who loved to recount his prowess on the baseball diamond, (as a first baseman,) and talk fox hunting. 

·         Peterson is fifty years sober.

·         He established and facilitated the first Read and Critique Writer’s Group at his local library – helping many writers to become published for the first time.

·         He conducts regular Writers Workshops at libraries and other facilities.