Robert M. Walton

I taught at San Lorenzo Middle School in King City, California for thirty-six years before retiring in June of 2006. Phyllis, my wife of 43 years, and I still reside in King City. We have two sons – Jeremy and Jon.

I am a life-long rock-climber and mountaineer. I've made numerous ascents in the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite, though my home crags are in Pinnacles National Monument. Three of my short stories about climbing were published in the Sierra Club's Ascent. I converted a story named "Three's a Crowd" into a radio play and it was broadcast on KUSF on November 22nd, 2006.

Five of my books have been published: Joel in Tananar, Flower Tumbles, The Dragon and the Lemon Tree, Chaos Gate and Dawn Drums. Dawn Drums awarded both the New Mexico Book Awards 2014 Tony Hillerman Award for Best Fiction and the Arizona Authors Association 2014 First Place Award for published fiction.

My writing has won a number of other awards. "Dogwood Dream" won first place in New Millennium Writing's 2011 short fiction contest. My novella "Vienna Station" won the 2011 Galaxy prize and was published as an e-book. It is available for Kindle here on Amazon. My short story "Lulu Garlic, Contraband" was broadcast on KVPR, an NPR affiliate. Here’s the link: http://kvpr.org/post/lulu-garlic-contraband-robert-walton-valley-writers-read

Last year, my "Sockdologizer" was awarded first place in the 2020 Saturday Writers Everything Children's contest.

Please do contact me via my blog if you have questions about my writing!