Photo by Rudy Riesgo
Robin Rosenbluth is the author of the new memoir Living with Strangers: Healing a Wounded Heart in a Distant Land. She has worked in the nonprofit sector in New York, and she teaches fundraising at New York University. She lives in Brooklyn.
Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?
A: For readers, I wanted to inspire older foster youth to believe that a better future lies ahead and that one person (for me, a guidance counselor) can help us get on that path.
In addition, I wanted to show foster parents the importance of caring for foster children, even when they don’t seem to want it. I want to see improvement in the foster care system.
I also wanted to highlight the common humanity we share with the Rendille and Samburu people: our care for our children, the ways we help neighbors, and our ability to befriend outsiders and people from other cultures. This is especially important to me in a US culture that breeds racism and xenophobia.
On a personal level, the year I spent in Kenya, living with the semi-nomadic Rendille and Samburu tribes, was life-changing. There, I found more acceptance (as the only white person/foreigner in the village) than I had received from my father, stepmother, and foster parents.
I came to understand that I could be vulnerable and honest without losing the people I wanted to care about me. It helped me believe I could have and maintain healthy relationships, something I had been unsure of before my time there.
Q: In the book’s acknowledgments, you credit your publisher with the idea for the book’s “braided” structure--can you say more about that?
A: I started writing by transcribing my journal from the year I spent in Kenya, maybe 10 years ago. Then I worked to create scenes about living there; writing creatively is nothing like journal writing: the former is for readers, and the latter is for me alone.
To understand why and how I spent a year in Kenya as a 19-year-old student, I used flashbacks to my mother’s early death, my brief time with a stepmother, and my teen years when I was sent to foster care.
When I completed what I learned is called my “vomit draft,” though I had edited it quite a bit, I wanted external feedback from an editor. I had taken memoir classes with Brooke Warner, who founded She Writes Press (my publisher), and paid her to review it.
She gave me good feedback, though the biggest suggestion, which would take much time, was to write full chapters about my childhood through my teen years and then braid them -- or go back and forth -- with chapters about my Kenyan life.
Q: The author Angela Quijada-Banks called the book “a beautifully written exploration of connection and belonging.” What do you think of that description?
A: Angela is someone I met when she presented at a You Gotta Believe event (where I sit on the board of this foster care agency dedicated to finding permanent homes for older foster youth). I was taken by her commitment to the nearly 95 percent of foster youth who are African American.
I was deeply moved that she connected with both my foster care experience and my sensitivity to how I navigated cultural differences while seeking acceptance. As a former foster child herself, she could see the ups and downs of my journey and resonate with it. I only hope that others can also take a similar ride through my experience.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: In many ways, it was a full acceptance of who I’ve become, in spite of, or perhaps because of, my difficult childhood.
My ability to write about loss and abandonment, especially as a foster child, and to publish this story for people who had no idea about my past was, in a way, saying this is who I am, where I came from, and that I am now the happy person you know. For those who do not know me, I feel like I am giving back to the foster care community.
I also feel good writing about my deep connection to people from such a different culture. I hope that older foster youth will be inspired and that people reading about Kenya will see the common humanity and depth of emotion all humans feel.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am writing essays (two of which will be published in October: Certain Age and Women Writers, Women's Books), and others are pending. I will have an essay in Foster Families about teens in foster care. I am also writing micro-memoirs.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I serve on the board of You Gotta Believe, a New York nonprofit that helps older foster youth find permanent families. I am a member of Impact 100 NYC, a women’s funding circle that reviews proposals from New York City-based organizations making an impact; we award $100,000 grants.
I volunteer with Heartbeat Music Project, a small nonprofit that provides music lessons to Navajo children on the reservation in New Mexico.
I have made a living as a fundraiser for 40 years, helping organizations whose missions resonate with me. I have taught fundraising at Columbia University and still teach at NYU. I also provide fundraising consulting for nonprofits.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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