P E O P L E
Turning Over a New Leaf
Author’s new project shows Los Angeles through a unique lens PHOTO BY CHRIS MORTENSON
Author Mike Robinson has written over 20 books and made his first professional sale when he was 19 years old. By Michele Robinson ocal author Mike Robinson is turning over a new leaf with his current writing project, “The Trailcutter.” Ready for another literary adventure, Robinson is taking a big leap from his usual genre to offer his readers a unique tale of conflict and conservation in the Santa Monica Mountains. “This book will show Los Angeles through the lens of the Santa Monica Mountains,” Robinson said. “Of all the stories that come out of LA, I’ve never seen one that uses its
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intersection with nature as a centerpiece. And that’s a very unique feature of the city–it’s the only big metropolis in the world bisected by a mountain range, for example.” “The Trailcutter,” which he began writing in January 2022, is inspired by Robinson’s involvement with the Sierra Club’s Santa Monica Mountains Task Force. While touching on themes of eco-consciousness, climate change, habitat loss and wildfires, the story also includes an intriguing murder-mystery angle. The main character is a resident trail-builder, and drawn
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from Robinson’s real-life volunteering experiences. “Through the organization, I expanded my knowledge of the trail system here, and more importantly, got to know the people who cut and care for it all,” Robinson said. Up until now, Robinson’s work has largely fallen under the banner of speculative fiction, an umbrella term for all things science-fiction, fantasy and horror. Even so, his familiarity with West LA can be found in several short stories. Examples in his recent collection “Too Much Dark Matter, Too Little Gray”
(released February 2022) include “Hero’s Journey,” which follows an LA-based scientist who, while on a beer run, undergoes a mind-expanding, otherworldly experience. In “Trail,” an avid hiker succumbs to the deceptively beautiful tranquility of an isolated Malibu hike. “The Encroaching” is a dark comic take on LA’s urban wildlife population. And in “Symbols of Atlantis,” a young whale strays into the Marina, ultimately offering a struggling writer an unlikely source of inspiration. Currently living in Culver City, Robinson was raised in Mar Vista. He attended Mar Vista Elementary School and graduated in 1994. At a young age, he showed promise in baseball, writing and art. To this day, Mar Vista Elementary School’s mural of humpbacks and dolphins, which he designed in the third grade for a contest, still sports the signature, “By Mikey and the Kids.” Robinson grew up loving prose, stories and storytelling. As a young baseball player at Mar Vista Park, his initial goal was to one day play professional baseball, which led to him reading baseball stories and eventually writing his own stories. “I enjoy playing in the sandbox of language,” Robinson said. In high school and early college, he briefly rerouted his creative energy into indie video games. For a while he attended Otis College of Art and Design, where he studied illustration. “I knew I wanted to write more than I wanted to draw so I decided to go all in, committing to a book a year,” Robinson said. “But of course, some will never see the light of day.” Over the years, Robinson has written over 20 books. He made his first professional sale in 2004 when he was 19, and at 27 he sold his first novel–which was by no means the first novel he wrote. Currently, he has 10 books published, with five more waiting in the wings. Like many writers, he admits to seeing his share of rejection letters. He even keeps a spreadsheet of them. “I’ve definitely seen more
rejections than acceptances,” Robinson recalls. “But if you have to do it, it doesn’t matter. You do it, and you do it with an eye toward improving every day, every year.” His work has garnered notices and awards from the likes of Writers of the Future, the NextGen Indie Book Awards, the Maxy Awards, Publishers Weekly’s BookLife Contest, and more. In 2013, Robinson met his literary agent Jennifer Azantian of the Azantian Literary Agency in San Diego, at the local West Coast 2 Writer’s Conference. She has since helped shepherd his books and his career. With Hollywood in his backyard, it’s hard for any writer in LA to completely abstain from screenwriting. Robinson co-wrote the script for “Chrysaline,” a short sci-fi thriller that debuted in 2017 at the Louisiana International Film Festival, and which is still making the festival rounds. He also wrote an indie feature, “Blood Corral,” a supernatural Hitchcockian thriller, which remains in post-production. He was noted as a finalist in the 2019 Screencraft Horror Contest for his adaptation of his own novel, “The Prince of Earth,” and as a semi-finalist in the ISA Genre-Busting Script Contest for the eco-horror period feature, “Mortis Radix,” which he co-wrote. With his love of LA’s nature evident, portions of Robinson’s in-progress novel “The Trailcutter” have been written on the Backbone Trail, which extends from Pacific Palisades to northern Malibu. “I hike with a notebook and camping chair,” Robinson said. “I love using the city’s backyard as an office. There are so many nooks and crannies to explore. It’s like multiple corners of the world were tilted up, funneling so much natural and cultural variety here. Though we also got all the traffic, too.” His books can be found as paperbacks, eBooks and audiobooks on Amazon. Visit smmtf. org to learn more about the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force. Mike Robinson mike-robinsonauthor.com
