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Robert Newton Peck (age 82) is an American author who writes young adult novels. His works include Soup and A Day No Pigs Would Die. He claims his birth date as February 17, 1928, but refused to specify where. Similarly, he states he graduated from a high school in Texas, yet again refuses to identify the specific location. Various sources indicate his birth place as Nashville, Tennessee. Though stated as his mother's birth place, other sources indicate the actual location as Ticonderoga, New York, and Peck, himself, may have been born there as well. The only verified Vermont connection, which Peck hints as his real birth place, comes from his father who was born in Cornwall, Vermont.

Peck served in World War II as a machine-gunner in the U.S. Army 88th Infantry Division. After the returned to the United States, Peck entered Rollins College, graduating in 1953. He then entered Cornell Law School, but failed to complete his studies.

He married Dorothy Anne Houston and fathered two children: Anne and Christopher. The best man at the wedding, and the godfather to the children, was Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood fame.

Peck published his first novel, A Day No Pigs Would Die, in 1972 at the age of forty-four. To date, his credits include fifty-five novels, six nonfiction works, thirty-five songs, three television specials, and over one-hundred poems.

In 1984, Peck was sued by Mary Jo Wardlaw, an Erskine College student, for outrageous conduct causing severe emotional distress and slander, for comments he made during a convocation speech at the college. 318 S.E.2d 284, S.C.App., 1984. A South Carolina appeals court upheld a $24,000 jury verdict against Peck for slander (the jury had stricken the outrageous conduct count, which is substantially the same as a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress), on the theory that when Peck cast an aspersion upon Wardlaw's chastity, his public remarks were slanderous per se.

In 1993, Peck was diagnosed with oral cancer. As of 2005, he lives in Longwood, Florida with his wife.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Robert Newton Peck", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0