Ep 199: Robin Wasserman

First Draft Episode #199: Robin Wasserman

Robin Wasserman, New York Times bestselling author of adult novel
Girls on Fire, as well as young adult novels The Waking Dark, The
Book of Blood and Shadow, Hacking Harvard, The Cold Awakening
series, the Seven Deadly Sins series. Her next novel, to come out
with Scribner, is Mother Daughter Widow Wife.
Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode



Robin loved Diane Wynne Jones and Stephen King as a kid,
particularly Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and It. (Robin wrote for
The Atlantic about, “How Stephen King Saved My Life”)




Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, mathematician, and
astrologer, about whom Robin would gladly talk about forever.
(And I would listen!)




Robin wrote her senior thesis about Dr. Timothy Leary, who
co-conducted studies known as the Psilocybin Project, which
sought to test whether psychedelics could cure the emotional
pain of Western man. Leary was fired from Harvard when the
ethics of his studies came into question, and went on to
continue promoting the use of psychedelics as a thought
leader in the 60s counter-cultural movement. Leary has
written extensively about his philosophy, including in books
like The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the
Tibetan Book of the Dead, his book with his partner in the
experiments, Richard Alpert* (now known as Ram Dass); his
autobiography, Flashbacks; and Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out.
Many have written about him, including The Timothy Leary
Project: Inside the Great Counterculture Experiment, compiled
by the archivist Jennifer Ulrich; and Timothy Leary: Outside
Looking In by Robert Forte.




*Of interest to me is that the TV show LOST paid homage
to Ram Dass by naming a character Richard Alpert






David Levithan, who has and does host a regular drinks night
for New York authors of young adult fiction. Robin went to
one of these gatherings and met John Green before Looking for
Alaska won the Printz.




Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of Nirvana, the band that
broke open grunge. Cobain died by suicide in 1994. If you’re
interested in Cobain, or Nirvana, or the grunge scene
generally, I personally recommend Everybody Loves Our Town:
An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm, and the documentary
Montage of Heck by Brett Morgen (about which Robin wrote,
“The Art of Resurrection: Montage of Heck,” in the Los
Angeles Times Review of Books).




The Satanic Panic was a phenomenon in the 1980s, wherein
millions of Americans feared that an underground cult of
Satan worshipers were practicing rituals and committing
crimes. Robin particularly recommends Richard Beck’s We
Believe the Children, which covers the phenomenon of,
specifically, day care workers being charged with horrible
accusations of child abuse. I’m obsessed with this
phenomenon, and there are a ton of other podcasts that do a
great job explaining it:




For a broad overview, the Stuff You Should Know podcast
released an episode about The Satanic Panic




The Satanic Panic is a multi-part, deep dive into the
phenomenon and many of the cases that came to define it
(and their resources page isn’t to be missed)




The McMartin Child Abuse trial was one of the most
massive and egregious examples of the Satanic Panic as a
community-seizing exercise of hysteria. Both WNYC’s The
Takeaway and Generation Why have devoted episodes to
exploring the case. Documentary filmmaker Penny Lane
(whose most recent film, Hail Satan?, is awesome) went on
KCRW’s The Document to discuss the case, and the
phenomenon.






Robin was inspired, in part, by an event of mass hysteria
that afflicted dozens (of mostly high school cheerleaders) in
LeRoy, New York, a phenomenon covered in the New York Times
and Slate. Robin wrote about the phenomenon for the Los
Angeles Times Review of Books (“Girl Trouble”), which is a
non-fiction piece on the history of hysteria and a review of
The Fever by Megan Abbott. Another book written about that
phenomenon is The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas (listen to
Kara’s episodes of First Draft here and here).




The West Memphis Three was another case of hysteria leading
to false convictions, in which three men in West Memphis,
Arkansas were held responsible for the deaths of three young
boys. The trial was controversial, and the three convicted
men were released after serving more than 18 years in prison.
The case is covered in a modern classic of documentary
filmmaking, a trio of docs that begins with Paradise Lost:
The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.




The concept of “kindred spirits” put forth by Anne of Green
Gables by L. M. Montgomery led Robin to some dysfunctional
concepts of female friendship as a young woman




Holly Black, who Robin calls “the queen of life modeling
exercises” (listen to Holly Black’s First Draft episode
here), asked her to write out what author she’d like to be.
Robert Cormier and Neil Gaiman were among the many different
answers to that question. Robin threw out that she’d like to
be a cross between Michael Chabon and Joss Whedon.




What/If, the TV show that Robin wrote for, is now available
to watch on Netflix!


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