Q&A with Salem Author Robyn Saunders Wilson

Salem’s creative community is full of quiet storytellers, and Robyn Saunders Wilson is one of them. After years of exploring identity, memory, and belonging on the page, she celebrates the release of her debut book, Junkyard Princess. We caught up with her to talk all things writing ahead of the occasion.

What first prompted you to start writing about your own life? Was there a specific moment, or did it happen gradually?

Oddly, it happened while waiting my turn at Jiffy Lube about twenty years ago. I can still remember the moment so vividly—sitting in the driver’s seat of my little red jeep with the sun baking my face and my attitude getting increasingly more cranky as I waited for my attendant, Jim. Jim was not moving fast. He had no intention of ever moving fast. A deep discomfort settled in as did the thought, “I am not supposed to be here,” followed by “no reputable car person goes to one of these oil change palaces of convenience.” But it was the reputable car person that stuck. Was that who I was? That sounded wrong, too. And with that label, I began to chase my identity, following a thread that I didn’t know needed to be pulled; a family history that I had never really questioned until my pen hit paper later that night in a graduate memoir class at Portland State University. I’ve been living and writing this story ever since.

There’s a tenderness in the way you write about people who live on the margins. What draws you to underdog stories?

My earliest memories are of strangers. Strangers placed in my neighborhood from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos following the Vietnam War. Strangers on the evening news and the newspaper headlines covering the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Strangers at the scrap yard where my dad would recycle his haul of mixed metals. I was so curious about these faces that were not like my own. How did they live? What did they think about? What was everyone eating? (The latter took up a lot of my mental energy.) In Southern California, there are such extreme examples of wealth, poverty, and celebrity. It seemed to me, very early on, that we were randomly born into our predicaments. I could have just as easily been a kid growing up in one of the lean-to shacks I saw off the side of the 1-5 freeway, but somehow I wasn’t.

But I was the daughter of an illiterate father. Very early on, I was aware of how different my dad was from other dads. He couldn’t read or write, couldn’t always control his emotions, was prone to outbursts and outlandish opinions. And yet, his generosity and kindness to those in need was legendary. His complexity required tenderness in response. I saw elements of my dad in everyone around me-fear, confusion, shame, and anger-these were on display in everyone and everywhere and my earliest tools for seeing the profound stories we all carry no matter our circumstance.

Many of us look back at our younger selves with a mix of embarrassment and compassion. What surprised you most when you revisited your adolescence on the page?

​​I didn’t realize how much Molly Ringwald meant to me! It’s true. Her fashion, pout, devotion to honesty, musical taste. You name it. She influenced every aspect of my tween years! Thank goodness for John Hughes movies. They were a complete guidebook on how to weather the ridiculousness of growing up. As I would write scenes from this time period, she would just appear in my memories coaxing me along. Patron Saint Molly.

More seriously, I’m now a mom to a teenage girl. As I worked through some of the more challenging memories in the book—events I’ve always been very hard on myself about—I placed my daughter in the scene instead of me. With this proxy, I could see the event for what it was more clearly and have more compassion for my words and actions. I was a child just trying to grow up in situations that were not always of my own choosing. I was surprised by how much I ended up loving this child … she was a cutie-a very cringey cutie.

What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing your book?

To consider the people, objects, and ideas that might get left behind in this wild world of ours. We’re moving fast, aren’t we? To where, I don’t think we always know, but we’re moving and scrolling. Can we slow down and cherish the people and places that make life richer? Everyone has a story and if we’re honest with our stories, we can learn from one another. I can’t think of a more generous gift to share.

This is your debut book. Can you tell us about that journey? Any advice for someone in Salem who has a story but doesn’t know where to begin?

Junkyard Princess began as a 10-page personal essay in graduate school about my dad buying a junkyard one day and transplanting our little family from a very safe place in suburban Orange County to a wild high desert town. Simple, right? I thought it would end there and get filed into a drawer to be forgotten. But as life kept marching forward, I would remember, write, and remember some more. Every draft inching toward new revelations. Time continued to tick on and yet the ending as penned never felt like the ending. The truth was I needed to let the clock run to collect not only the stories making up this early time period, but the aftermath. Patterns were forming and this effort was becoming more than entertaining literature—this was my life unfolding, rubbing up on my children and husband. Learning from memories and shared histories was now the big swing. I had genuine stakes in the game.

I created a blog about ten years ago to capture these memories and revelations. When the blog became too big, I hit up the experts, taking writing classes at Literary Arts in Portland and working with an extremely gifted writing coach and editor, Michelle Kicherer. I was learning so much from the writing and discovering universal themes emerging from my nutty stories, which made me want to share them more broadly but with a lot of creative control. Eventually, I found a home in Banana Pitch Press, an indie press located in Portland, that would allow me to tell my story my way and that could provide the editorial and design support usually found at a much larger publishing house. In other words, I’ve been working with a dream team. I’m not sure how I got so lucky.

Books don’t get written by thinking about them alone. Advice: set a manageable daily goal to form a habit, and then do it. I can be very lazy, so my daily goal is 200 words. Usually I exceed that, but not always, which is often a sign that I’m not telling the right story. Taking classes is another great way to stay motivated and accountable with an expert eye guiding you along. I LOVE Literary Arts in Portland. The instructors are clever and the reading lists are the BEST.

What’s next?

I can’t wait to find out!

Meet the Author

Robyn Saunders Wilson in conversation with Jessica Amos
5-6:30 p.m. March 27
The Book Bin, 450 Court St NE

Order Robyn’s book locally from The Book Bin here.

This story originally ran in Press Play Salem issue 27 (Spring 2026)

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Author: Carlee Wright

Carlee Wright is a community instigator with a grand love for Salem and notably fashionable shoes (Hello, John Fluevog!) who turns waste into wearable art in her "spare" time.