The author’s early schooling was in Michigan, after which he graduated from Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) as a chemical engineer. Switching career direction, he entered the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and after residency at the Massachussetts General Hospital in Boston, and two years in the Navy, he practiced and taught cardiac and thoracic surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where his writing was focused on surgical topics. The published works include four books, chapters in 12 other books, and over 100 scientific, peer-reviewed papers. It wasn’t until after retiring that he began to write Maaijke.

Many of Peter’s interests in the novel are shared by Vander Salm, including piloting a plane, sailing, fishing, and bird hunting, the latter in the company of a Labrador Retriever who shares an 1820’s home in coastal New England with the author and his wife.