Robert Louis DeMayo

Robert Louis DeMayo is a native of Hollis, N.H., but traveled through many corners of the planet before settling in the Southwest. He took up writing at the age of twenty when he left his job as a biomedical engineer to explore the world. Over a ten-year period—the last decade before the internet—DeMayo completed ten six-month trips abroad and visited close to 100 countries, crossing many of them overland. His extensive journaling during his travels inspired four of his novels and far-reaching work for the travel section of The Telegraph, out of Nashua, NH, as well as the Hollis Times. He is a longtime member of The Explorers Club and chair of its Southwest Chapter. His undying hunger for exploration led to a job marketing for Eos Study Tours, a company that served as a travel office for six non-profit organizations and offered dives to the Titanic and the Bismarck, Antarctic voyages, African safaris and archaeological tours throughout the world. For several years after that, Robert worked as a tour guide in Alaska, during the summers, leading hikes and horseback excursions in the Yukon, and as a jeep guide in Arizona during the winter. He was made general manager of the Arizona Jeep tour company but eventually left the guiding world to write full-time. The last few years have seen him exploring US soil, usually for writing projects, in Utah’s Zion, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Sedona and the Verde Valley, Hawaii, the Badlands of North Dakota, and Aroostook County in northern Maine. DeMayo is the author of eight novels: The Making of Theodore Roosevelt, a fictionalized account of Roosevelt´s first acquaintance with wilderness living; The Light Behind Blue Circles, a mystery thriller set in Africa; The Wayward Traveler, a semi-autobiographical story following a young traveler on his adventures abroad; Pledge to the Wind, The Legend of Everett Ruess, a fictionalized account of the life and times of the young solo traveler of the American West; The Road to Sedona, the story of a young family that heads up to Alaska to find work in the wake of 9/11; The Sirens of Oak Creek, a historical mystery of Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona spanning twelve centuries. Plus Pithecophilia, a collection of stories of ape encounters, and The King of the Coral Sea, a historical fiction account of Michael Fomenko’s great sea journey. Collectively, his books have won a dozen national awards. This November, he will publish American Literary Nomads and, the next fall, a historical mystery in Maine entitled Winding Hill Road. Currently, he resides in Sedona, AZ, and spends his time with his three daughters: Tavish Lee, Saydrin Scout, and Martika Louise.