Robyn Saunders in conversation with Michelle Kicherer
The Literary Arts Bookstore & Cafe is thrilled to welcome Robyn Saunders Wilson to celebrate her debut, Junkyard Princess! Saunders Wilson will be in conversation with Michelle Kicherer.
About Junkyard Princess
The year is 1983. It’s a time of both mullets and glam, Bowie and the Smiths, and for twelve-year-old Robyn: rusty old vehicles, terrifying dogs, and grease-stained car guys. Robyn’s dad has just uprooted the family from the clean streets of Orange County and plopped them in the middle of the California High Desert to fulfill his lifelong dream: to own a junkyard.
At first, the new business is a lark, but soon Robyn is hawking auto parts amidst a motley assortment of fugitives and refugees. Too young to know better, Robyn misses that the people around her may be slightly dangerous. Without any real role models and lost among kids her own age, Robyn fakes her way through her teen years by mimicking the only adults she admires: soap opera stars and characters plucked from Danielle Steel romance novels. But when the rise of meth use takes hold of the area, a new flicker of danger threatens to strike its match on the Saunders’ junkyard kingdom.
Told in smiling vignettes, filled with daydreams and vulnerability and just a hint of self-deprecation, Junkyard Princess is infused with compassion for the blue collar and empathy for the underdog. Saunders Wilson’s debut memoirella explores familial bonds and inherited histories, empty gas tanks, and that sweet spot of redemption that only comes from a life of observing and choosing differently.
Robyn Saunders Wilson
Robyn Saunders Wilson is a nonfiction writer based in Salem, Oregon. A graduate of Portland State University’s Professional Writing MA program, she has split her time as a communications consultant, bike shop owner, mountain bike coach, and community activist, but mostly a writer of stories—true and otherwise. Robyn’s work has been published in Pile Press, House of Huckleberry, Press Play, and Annabelle Magazine, among others. Junkyard Princess is her debut book.
Michelle Kicherer
Michelle Kicherer writes about books and music for the San Francisco Chronicle, Willamette Week and others. She is also a writing coach and former ghostwriter specializing in fiction and memoir. Michelle’s fiction has been published in The Master’s Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, 8142 Review and many others, and her novella Sexy Life, Hello is out in audiobook in Sept ‘24 and in print March ‘25 on Banana Pitch Press. Michelle believes there are no dumb questions in the classroom, only pretentious instructors.
