“Tom Peek has lived a life worthy of Melville, Twain and Stevenson.”
—Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald
Tom writing on the lanai of his rainforest cottage on Kilauea volcano.
Wide-ranging writer
Tom has explored diverse writing venues for four decades, impacting a wide variety of audiences—and never more potently than with his award-winning Hawaiʻi novel Daughters of Fire.
His work ranges from fiction and late-night radio comedy to university publications, and includes novels, public policy studies, newspaper commentaries, magazine articles, national park exhibits and award-winning video productions.
Tom’s writing reflects his four abiding passions: love and respect for nature, social and economic justice, racial and ethnic understanding, and personal empowerment through creative expression.
Every year for fifteen years, Tom taught a three-day weekend writers retreat for the Volcano Art Center on Hawaiʻi Island.
Compassionate writing mentor
As an integral part of his writer’s life—and to honor his own potent writing mentors—Tom has taught many hundreds of writers and aspiring writers how to get started, keep going and dive deep with courage and conviction. Since 1991, his highly acclaimed Empowered by the Pen! workshops have been offered through the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, Volcano Art Center, the Pacific Writers’ Connection, and other venues throughout Hawaiʻi and in Canada. He’s also done editorial consultations, writers group facilitation and private mentoring. Many of his students and editorial clients are now published authors.
Tom on the Upper Mississippi near his hometown on Grey Cloud Island.
An adventurous life lived close to the ground
Tom’s diverse writing career parallels his unusual life, ranging from Mississippi “river rat,” South Seas sailor and Kilauea eruption ranger to political activist, public policy expert, English and writing teacher, and spiritual seeker.
Tom with visiting sailors at the Michigan Island light in Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.
Tom lived his early life on the Upper Mississippi on a backwaters island of Minnesota river folk, beavers and owls, and ancient burial mounds. When a powerful sand and gravel company tried to expand their strip mining Tom’s family mobilized township residents to fight for their beautiful and historically significant island.
Tom often visited Lake Superior (Gitchigami) where he sailed, camped, snowshoed and dove on shipwrecks. (Later, in 2001, he and his wife worked as volunteer lighthouse keepers in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.)
Working as a deckhand aboard the yacht Endymion off the Tongan Coast in 1987.
Inspired by his Mississippi and Lake Superior upbringing, Tom became an environmentalist as a teenager and later obtained a Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, specializing in environmental and economic sustainability. In 1979 he joined the University’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs where for almost a decade he wrote policy studies and articles on environmental and other issues impacting Minnesota. He also brought fresh, progressive ideas into Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party as a party officer and a founder and first Chair of the Coalition for a Progressive DFL. Twin Cities newspapers are among the U.S. dailies that have published Tom’s editorials, and Twin Cities public access television stations broadcast his early award-winning videos.
In 1987, exhausted from years of academic and political work and disillusioned by the lack of public interest in sustainability during that regressive post-Reagan era, Tom took off on a vagabond journey that eventually led him to the South Pacific and Hawaiʻi.
That’s when he began writing fiction.
Three decades a Big Islander
After hitchhiking by boat across the South Seas (swimming with whales off Niue and getting caught in a coup d’etat in Fiji), he resettled on Hawaiʻi Island. He supported himself and his writing with an array of remarkable part-time jobs—astronomy guide on Mauna Kea; all-night disk jockey at KWXX radio; eruption ranger, wildland firefighter and exhibit writer for Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park; and ESL teacher at a Japanese school in Hilo—all while teaching his writing students.
Astronomy and mountain guide on Mauna Kea.
Eruption ranger on Kilauea (with fellow ranger and wife Catherine Robbins).
Wildland firefighter on Kilauea and Mauna Loa.
Writing instructor with Hana, Maui workshop participants.
Exhibit writer at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
English teacher for visiting Japanese students.
“Living local” and almost always working low-pay jobs, Tom bonded with islanders from every ethnic tradition, including Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and elders on Mauna Kea and Kilauea who inspired, informed and encouraged his writing about their beautiful and troubled islands. When these friends asked him to contribute his writing skills and political expertise to their struggles to protect those sacred mountains, he did, which led to an even deeper understanding of his new island home and those who seek to protect it.
Tom at the seashore with his closest kupuna (revered elder) Aunty Leinaʻala Apiki McCord.
Tom with his artist wife Catherine Robbins in their rainforest cottage near the summit of Kilauea.
A few personal details
Tom lives with his wife, artist Catherine Robbins, in a rainforest cottage a few miles below the fuming crater of Kilauea, and is currently working on another novel. He’s also a lifelong piano player and composer, and in 2009 he and his brother CJ released a CD of their extensive Jazz-New Age Fusion compositions called Piano Stories. Tom also loves photography and worked as a newspaper photographer in his youth. He is a member of the Authors Guild, the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance (KAHEA), Amnesty International, Sierra Club and Our Revolution.
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