• Leave a Comment
• Send an Email
• Invite as Friend

Meet Robert Lytle, a Saginaw native, who resides in Rochester, Michigan, where he works as a pharmacist in his own drug store. He visits Mackinac Island as frequently as time permits.

About the author

Robert Lytle, storytelling with hats!A pharmacist and drugstore owner for over 30 years, Bob took up writing as a hobby around 1991. Since then, he has had eight books published. The five Mackinac Passage stories loosely describe his childhood summers in Michigan's upper peninsula.

When he was five years old his family came into possession of a crude but habitable cabin in the Les Cheneaux Islands of Michigan's upper peninsula. Every summer thereafter was filled with sunny days spent fishing, sailing, swimming, hiking and exploring. During his summer breaks from Ferris State where he was studying to become a pharmacist, Bob worked on Mackinac Island as a dock porter at the Island House Hotel, as dockmaster at the yacht dock and as a folk singer at the Lake View Hotel. It was here he met his future wife in his last Mackinac summer.

After graduation, Bob and his wife raised their four sons in Rochester where they bought and renovated a hundred-year-old pharmacy on Main Street. It was while researching the history of that building that he became interested in Michigan's past. What he learned prompted him to write two time-travel adventures, Three Rivers Crossing and A Pitch in Time, both of which are being used extensively in Michigan schools, as well as Mackinac Passage: Pirate Party.

Robert published his first book in 1995. His first two works were selected by the Great Lakes Booksellers Association to be included in their list of the "Top Ten Children's Books of the Year." Bob continues to write every day, and enjoys breaking away to visit schools. His presentations range from reading poems to second-grade classes to sharing publishing secrets with college-age English majors.

More about the storyteller

In the older days in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, the seanachie (sen-ah-key, the teller of tales) was welcomed with all the excitement and enthusiasm of today's rock stars: The seanachie was treated with honor and respect-for he was one who passed down the traditions and history of the Celtic peoples-sagas we would today call myths, legends, or even fairy tales.

The tradition of the seanachie has all but died out-but here and there around the globe, it survives, kept alive and carried on by the imagination and talent of a master tale-spinner. Both young and older readers are fortunate to have Bob, this modern-day seanachie. When not actively writing or working in his store, he enjoys visiting schools to discuss his stories, history, music and like the ancient seanachie, telling stories to enthralled young people of all ages.

Meet Robert Lytle, a Saginaw native, who resides in Rochester, Michigan, where he works as a pharmacist in his own drug store. He visits Mackinac Island as frequently as time permits. About the author Robert Lytle, storytelling with hats!A pharmacist and drugstore owner for over 30 years, Bob took up writing as a hobby around 1991. Since then, he has had eight books published. The five Mackinac... More