I am always inspired by strong women who aren’t afraid to speak up. Michelle Janine Robinson is a force to be reckoned with and to say her writing is incredible is an understatement. After being rejected countless times, she had her big break thanks to the amazing Zane. Michelle Janine Robinson personifies holding on to your dreams and never giving up. I’m so excited that she decided to grace our blog with her words and thoughts and let us learn a little bit more about her ambitions. I had the opportunity to ask her about her future goals and her perspective on current news stories, primarily pertaining to people of color. You don’t want to miss what she shared with me.
Where did you gain your inspiration for your books?
I’ve always been fascinated by the human psyche; with the circumstances surrounding why people do the things they do. My imagination constantly finds me questioning the lives people live behind closed doors and the “what ifs” in life. What if the man hit by a car had been two minutes earlier or two minutes later? What if an employee, instead of being inside the Twin Towers on 9/11, just missed their train and therefore their life was spared? All these kinds of questions inspire me. I combine this with my life story and my speculation about the lives of complete strangers I encounter every day and the stories I write come to life.
When did you decide you wanted to become an author?
For quite some time I dreamed of writing children’s stories. I have loved writing ever since I was a little girl and found that writing was the one thing I always came back to and the one thing I always excelled at no matter what. However, when I finally decided to try writing and getting my children’s stories published (about twenty years ago), I was met with countless rejection letters from agents and publishers alike. For a year or two I gave up on trying to get published and started writing a book titled Color Me Grey. After writing it off and on for a few years, I pulled it out of a box and decided to try to get it published and once again was met with an onslaught of rejection letters. It wasn’t until 2009 when I decided to submit a short story in response to one of Zane’s calls for submissions for one of her anthologies (Caramel Flava) that I began to realize my dream of being published. Encouraged by the incredible success of Zane’s anthologies, I realized any dream worth having was worth shooting for. That’s when I decided to present one of my novels to Zane for possible publication.
What is your ultimate goal in life? We’re talking top three on your bucket list.
I often tell people that motherhood is the great equalizer. First, I’ve often felt that pre-motherhood I was quite narcissistic. However, after giving birth to my children twenty years ago, my thoughts shifted from me to them. More than anything in life, I want happiness for my children; however, they are the ones who must define “happiness” for themselves. Second, I would like enough time on this planet to realize the countless dreams I have for myself, the greatest of which is seeing my books on the silver screen. Finally, I feel like many of the books I write are part of my internal search for my own storybook ending. I want that in real life. I guess in a way that’s what many of us want—and that’s why we read and write.
You recently posted a picture on Twitter of the cover to Strange Fruit, stating that in it you predicted things similar to the Klu Klux Klan’s recent recruiting process. Can you elaborate on the similarities between these two for our readers?
When I first started writing Strange Fruit in 2009, it was my hope that many of us who had become complacent about race relations in America might recognize just how bad things could really get. Since then, there have been many more discussions about our children dying at the hands of the police and others, simply because of the color of their skin. Our president has been openly disrespected in ways that no other president ever has throughout our history and despite my best hopes that finally electing a black president might improve race relations, in some respects it has had an adverse effect. In my opinion, racist acts have become even more aggressive and as people of color we sit in a truly precarious position. Left unchecked, things will continue to get worse instead of better. Though Strange Fruit is a fictional account of the potential for people of color to once again become slaves, each day I read the news I come to realize the things that may be regarded as impossible may soon become a reality. Since I wrote the book there have been so many highly publicized cases of black people pretty much being “strung up.” Yet, when all the media attention dies down, nothing is truly done. And, in several cases, there are no consequences for those who have killed people of color, which is also how things went many years ago in the South.
Do you have any upcoming projects that you would like to let our readers know about?
I am currently working on a novel about a famous singer who dies suddenly and though her death is ruled an overdose, she was actually killed by someone no one would ever suspect. I am also putting the finishing touches on a sequel to my first book, Color Me Grey.