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Bionote: Robin E. Field was raised in Peoria, Illinois and Honolulu, Hawai‘i. She earned a B.A. with honors in English from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Virginia. She has taught at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania since 2006 and is the Manus Cooney Distinguished Service Professor and Professor of English. She has one husband, two sons, and three cats.
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
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TMYS 1:
Please tell us about the SANTA of your life. Maybe a person who felt like Santa or a phase, a day, an event, a moment from your childhood when innocent wishes seemed granted.
Robin:
When I was 11 years old, my father got a job at the University of Hawai‘i. I was born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, a small city surrounded by cornfields in the Midwest region of the United States. Moving to Hawai‘i was an amazing adventure! In addition to the natural beauty of the islands, I was amazed by the warmth and genuine kindness of the locals—what is called the aloha spirit. My year in Hawai‘i changed my life and broadened my horizons, allowing me to imagine living outside of Illinois and valuing cultures that had been unfamiliar to me previously.
TMYS 2: You wear multiple hats in the literary space balancing writing, editing and teaching. Do the roles complement each other? Do you ever feel conflicted?
Robin:
All three of these build upon each other. When I’m writing, I look to the wise ideas and exquisite phrasing of authors such as Toni Morrison, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sandra Cisneros, and Louise Erdrich, whose works I teach whenever possible. Because I write myself, I am especially attuned to the construction of ideas, the delicate balance of word choice, and the importance of meticulous proofreading. I enjoy moving between these roles, sometimes on a daily basis!
TMYS 3: You have worked extensively on women’s struggles and social violence. The practice of entitlement or belief in superiority begins at a very young age and is often influenced by the environment. Can a child can be immuned from the atmospheric toxicity impacting his or her behaviour? Please share your thoughts.
Robin:
I am a firm believer in talking frankly with children about social justice, sexism and patriarchy, and equality and respect. I have two sons, and my job as their mother is to ensure that they are good feminists! When they ask hard questions about women’s struggles, I answer honestly and remind them that they will encounter fewer challenges because of being male, being white, and being American. The more we talk openly about sexual violence, harassment, and inequality with children and young people, the more likely they are to become positive forces for change.
TMYS 4: As a professor and as an editor, what are some of the most interesting and thought-provoking observations that you may have had, on the gender-sensitivities of the modern male students/writers? Would you please point out some of the contemporary factors in the personal, professional or social presence of the youth (both male and female) which still hinder women’s growth and aspirations?
Robin:
We must address the social assumptions that continue to put women and men into gendered binaries that ascribe limiting roles and emotions for everyone. (I am heartened that many young people have moved beyond these binaries in their gender roles—some of my students are nonbinary and they and their peers find it absolutely unremarkable.) As an example, I am surprised by the number of heterosexual young women who assume they will change their surnames after marriage and the surprise from young men who do not understand why taking on the man’s name shouldn’t be the default decision. When I discuss how I kept my surname and how my boys have my surname, not their father’s, the students are politely perplexed. Then I tell of how two alumni of my college use the woman’s last name post their wedding: the husband took his wife’s surname. I have found that male students are more open to expressing emotions than my own peers were in college. However, there is still a lot of room for growth in today’s young people.
TMYS 5: From the budding writers that you may have mentored or whose work you have read/edited, would you like to mention some names for the world to watch out for? It is fine if they are not famous yet or if they have not armed themselves with a significant list of publications. We would love to know about the upcoming voices whose thoughts can inspire people to work for an equal world – not for activism but because that is the right way of life.
Robin:
My favorite contemporary author is Susan Muaddi Darraj, an Arab American writer of novels, short stories, young adult fiction, and essays. She has three fantastic mosaic novels—short stories that are loosely connected through place and character—entitled The Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (2008), A Curious Land: Stories from Home (2015), and Behind You Is the Sea: A Novel (2024). Her writing is beautiful, heartbreaking, and inspiring—taking on stereotypes about Arabs, about Brown people and other people of color, and about social class in America. She definitely needs to be read! Recently, I also enjoyed Sonora Jha’s academic novel The Laughter, Janice Obuchowski’s short story collection The Woods, and Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility.
TMYS 6: When you are on the editor’s desk, what are some of the primary factors that help you to decide whether a submission goes into the ‘Consideration’ folder or the ‘Rejection’ folder? What is your general philosophy on rejection?
Robin:
I took rejection very hard when I began submitting academic essays as a graduate student. Fifteen years later, I began submitting short stories to literary magazines and felt crushed when rejection form letters started rolling in! It’s important for writers to realize that journals get so many submissions, so in many cases, really good essays or short stories end up getting rejected.
As Managing Editor of South Asian Review, I try to offer several lines of actionable feedback to authors whose essays we do not accept. If an essay has potential, we try to work with the author to improve the essay—we do not want to reject essays if at all possible! My advice to these authors is to make sure you’ve read the essays we have published in the journal before you send your work, to ensure your ideas are within the scope of what we publish. For fiction writers, the same advice applies—know the venue you are sending your work to. And make sure you have others read your work before you send it to journals—second opinions are always helpful!
TMYS 7: Your publications suggest your significant interest in Indian authors. Would you like to tell us what draws your interest in Indian storytellers? We are just curious.
Robin:
One of my dearest friends is the daughter of Indian immigrants. I loved spending time at her home, drinking chai and chatting with the uncles and aunties who were visiting. I started reading Vikram Seth, Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Divakaruni, and Jhumpa Lahiri during college and graduate school as pleasure reading. Soon I realized that I could combine my academic interests with my personal interests, and I began writing about these authors. In 2002, I attended the South Asian Literary Association conference in New York City, and I met such wonderful mentors and friends there that I threw myself into the organization, serving on the Executive Committee, as Treasurer, and now as Managing Editor of the journal, South Asian Review. I’ve been to India once and look forward to visiting there again, as well as other South Asian countries!
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This interview is featured in the book,
LETTERS FROM SANTA: an anthology of poems, short stories and interviews
available worldwide via Amazon. Here is the India link.
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An interview by Gennia Nuh for #TellMeYourStory, under the Story Project 11 themed on Letters from Santa.