Robert J. Mrazek 

   Robert Mrazek is 64 years old and grew up in Huntington, N. Y.  He graduated from Cornell University in 1967 with an AB degree in political science.  From 1967-1968, he served in the U.S. Navy.

   After working on the Washington staff of U.S. Senator Vance Hartke (D-Ind.), he was elected in 1982 to the U.S. Congress, defeating the Republican incumbent in New York’s “Gold Coast” district.  Elected to the Appropriations Committee as a freshman member, he served ten years in Congress, announcing in 1991 that he would not stand for re-election.  His work covered a broad spectrum of issues. 

   In 1990 Bob Mrazek authored the law that saved the 17 million acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska from being clear-cut by two Japanese pulp companies.  Mrazek also authored the Amerasian Homecoming Act, a law that brought more than 16,000 children of American military personnel from lives as street children to the U.S.  

   Congressman Mrazek also wrote the Landmark Preservation Act that saved the Manassas  Civil War battlefield from pending development as a “mega-mall” shopping center.  He also authored the National Film Preservation Act, a law that established the National Federal Registry of master film works in the Library of Congress, for which he received a career achievement award from the Director’s Guild of America.

   For his preservation work, Mrazek was also named Conservationist of the Year by the National Parks and Conservation Association and earned the Commissioner’s Preservationist Award from the Governor of New York.  Since his retirement from Congress, he has served on the boards of several charitable organizations, including ten years as Chairman of the Washington-based Alaska Wilderness League. 

   His first novel, Stonewall’s Gold, was published by St. Martin’s Press.  It was chosen as a featured selection of the Literary Guild, a main selection of Reader’s Digest Select Editions, and won the Michael Shaara prize for the best Civil War novel of the year.  His subsequent novel, Unholy Fire, which was published by St. Martin’s Press in May, 2003, received similar critical acclaim.  His third novel, The Deadly Embrace, was published by Viking Penguin Press in 2006, and won the W.Y. Boyd prize for the best military fiction of 2007.   

   His latest book, the non-fiction A Dawn Like Thunder, was published by Little, Brown & Co. in December 2008.  It was a main selection of the Military and History Book Clubs, and was named one of the Best Books of 2009 (American History) by the Washington Post.  Mr. Mrazek’s books have been published in fourteen countries around the world.