Award-winning author Peter Michael grew up abroad and has lived on five continents in a career of writing, international advisory roles and teaching. 

He has written eight books, four of which have won national books prizes, and has appeared on C-SPAN, National Public Radio, ABC News, America Untold, Home & Garden TV, and in numerous publications. His first literary prize came as an undergraduate for an article on British polymath James Clerk Maxwell. His book awards are listed on the Prizes page here. 

In a chosen life of civic involvement, he has sat on more than twenty boards of directors or trustees, mostly in the arts, race relations, and civic organizations, including a higher education gubernatorial appointment. He has served as chairman or president of eight civic organizations or corporations, and as founder, cofounder or officer of eleven.

Peter Hanson Michael is related to John Hanson, first United States President under the Articles of Confederation in 1781-82, and descends from Maryland colonial governor William Stone and from Francis Michael, in 1704 the first explorer of western Maryland where Peter Michael lives. 

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Berkeley and Princeton, he has taught at the graduate level at universities in the United States, Japan, Thailand and Costa Rica.

He and his wife Vicki, a painter, live on a historic Maryland farm founded in 1768 by his family. The farm is powered entirely by sun and wind.