Who Is Peter Pike?

Peter Pike was born June 22, 1978 in Fairbanks, Alaska.  He moved to Colorado when he was two years old, and has been there ever since.

An avid reader from a young age (he and his siblings often won the summer reading contests at their local libraries), Peter fell in love with the English language.  As a pre-teen, he would write short stories to his aunt.  Despite their poor quality, she always loved them.

In junior high, Peter added music to his interests when he gained the desire to play the saxaphone.  Alas, there were too many saxaphone players in his school band, and he never got the opportunity to play that instrument.  Instead he learned trumpet and later French horn.  During high school, he was first chair trumpet at his school.  The band director also doubled as the Drama Club supervisor, and in his sophomore year Peter joined and found that he enjoyed acting as well.

As a junior, he was named Thespian of the Year for his school after performing the role of Andrew Carnes in the play Oklahoma!  As a senior, he played Uncle Max in The Sound of Music.  As a result of these experiences, he has never since enjoyed a Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

Also as a senior, Peter won the John Philip Sousa Award in band, and went on to pen a short story that was read aloud in his English class (after that reading, a classmate asked the teacher: "Why can't we read stories like that in our literature book?" to which the teacher responded, "I think one day you will.").  Finally, Peter arranged several themes from various movie soundtracks, including The Last of the Mohicans and Braveheart, into a band piece that was performed at his high school graduation, where he had the honor of directing the band.

Given all this, Peter took the logical step of going to college as a Computer Science major.  Yeah, we don't know what the hell he was thinking either.

During this prodigal time, however, Peter remained creative.  He learned guitar and co-founded a punk band with two others, which later morphed into a techno/punk one-man-band after the other members dropped out (one became a teacher, the other a Marine). He also managed to publish a poem ("Sin Nature") in the literary magazine riverrun and a short story ("Time and Again") in the Aphelion webzine. He converted the short story that was read aloud in his senior English class into a full length novel.

Peter says: “Writing that first novel was quite the experience for me.  The first draft was only 38,000 words long—really a novella.  Subsequent revisions pushed it up to the 50,000 word mark.  At the time, I was quite proud of it.  But if I look at it objectively, it wasn’t very well written.  I’ve improved a great deal over the years (thank God!), but that first novel showed me I had the ability to write.  I doubt the story is really worth salvaging now that I am better skilled at the craft.  Yet despite its flaws, I am still proud of that little novel.”

Peter now has two completed novels and is currently seeking representation.  His style can be minimalistic at times, which serves well for the action/thriller genre.  He also enjoys horror to an extent that is disturbing. 

In addition to writing novels, Peter also works on several short stories every year and many musical pieces, and in 2009 he began writing, directing, and scoring animations using characters created by Xtranormal. 

No matter what he works on, Peter always works with the same motto: If you write for no reason you have no reason to write.