FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 8, 2005

Award-winning author Robert Newton Peck to keynote MUW forum
  
COLUMBUS, Miss. – Award-winning author Robert Newton Peck will be the keynote speaker for Mississippi University for Women’s 2005 Teachers of the Gifted Instructional Forum.
    
The Forum, an annual conference offered by the MUW graduate programs in education for area teachers, is set for Friday, April 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Pope Banquet Room. Peck will speak at 9:30 a.m. Registration is required.
   
In addition to his speaking engagement on campus, Peck will conduct public sessions to introduce his soon-to-be released book, “Weeds in Bloom,” on Thursday, April 21 at 7 p.m. in the Columbus Public Library (sponsored by the Friends of the Library) and on April 22 at 7 p.m. in Poindexter Hall. These sessions will showcase his humor and talent on the piano. Admission is free.
   
The son of hardworking rural people, Peck was born in Vermont, where he was raised on a farm. He worked as a lumberjack, as a paper mill worker, as a butcher killing hogs and as an advertising executive before the publication of his first book in 1973. He also served as a machine-gunner in the U.S. Army 88th Infantry Division between 1945 and 1947.
   
Newton received a bachelor of arts degree from Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., in 1953 and studied law at Cornell University.
   
A prolific writer of fiction for young people, his work is rooted in the rural tradition of his boyhood. His first book, “A Day No Pigs Would Die,” concerns the rites of passage of a young boy growing up on a Vermont farm. In 1973, it was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. He has written 15 books in the last 10 years.
   
Motivating the young to read is a task of paramount importance to Peck. He believes that reading a chapter aloud whets the appetite so that children will come back for more. In addition, he believes that children are basically the same, no matter in what age they live.
   
Along with schoolteachers, Peck has a particular affection for librarians, and, in fact, married one, Dorothy Houston, in 1978. They have two children, Christopher Haven and Ann Houston.
   
In recent years, he has forsaken rural Vermont for Florida, where despite his prodigious output of books, he finds time to direct the annual Writers Conference at Rollins College.
   
When he is not writing, Peck enjoys “showing off” in his spare time.  He plays concert-level jazz and ragtime piano. He also possesses the ability to spin a cowboy rope and play the harmonica.
   
For more information about Peck’s visit or TGIF, contact Dr. Bob Seney, professor of gifted studies, at (662) 329-7112.