Robin Oliveira

Robin Oliveira grew up just outside Albany, New York in the town of Loudonville. She holds a B.A. in Russian from the University of Montana, and studied at the Pushkin Language Institute in Moscow, Russia. She worked for many years as a Registered Nurse, specializing in Critical Care and Bone Marrow Transplant. In 2006 she received an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives outside of Seattle, Washington, with her husband, Andrew Oliveira. She has two children, Noelle Oliveira and Miles Oliveira. All three are the loves of her life.

Oliveira's new novel is A Wild and Heavenly Place.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My agent thought of the title, as she does most of my novels. A Wild and Heavenly Place represents the book well because it hearkens to the deepest desires of Samuel Fiddes, one of the protagonists. Orphaned and caring for his younger sister in the tenements of 19th century Glasgow. Samuel and Alison have already suffered a great deal, and they possess no agency to better their lives. Alone and in need, Samuel falls in love with Hailey MacIntyre, a wealthy young woman of privilege who nonetheless shares a similar desire for a life different from the one she is leading. When tragedy befalls Hailey's’ father, the two young lovers are torn apart, and ultimately voyage separately to the deep wilderness of early Seattle, in hopes of more.

What’s in a name?

A minor character in the novel is a black man, a former slave, named Pruss Loving. I came across his name while exploring the coal mining past of Roslyn, Washington, where black men from the south were brought in not as new recruits, but as strikebreakers, unbeknownst to them. I was immediately attracted to this unusual name, and tucked away in my memory to use in a future novel. Rather than hoping to convey an aspect of character, I wanted to honor all the black coalminers who came to Washington to work, many transported to the state under false pretenses.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

This story is in fact written for my teenaged self, the girl who fell in love with sweeping, continents-spanning love stories in novels that celebrated place. I grew up reading. I loved to read. That I now write books is an accomplishment that I think would astonish her.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I know very little about a story when I begin, just the bare outlines, and very little about how the story will end. It is always an exploration as I write, and therefore not hard—though it is—but a journey of discovery. I did have an image this time around, writing my fourth novel, of my ideal ending, based on the ruins of a stone house on San Juan Island. That kept me going even though how I was going to get there remained elusive.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

One of the inspirations for this new novel was a new-found hobby. My husband and I, through the influence of some kind friends, have taken up boating on Puget Sound. Because of that, I’ve not only had to learn navigation and seamanship and how to captain a boat, but it’s also given me a vantage point of Washington geography that I would not have had. I doubt very much that one of my main characters would have become a shipbuilder without that influence, nor would I have been able to write the geography in such a specific, detailed way.

Visit Robin Oliveira's website.

The Page 69 Test: My Name Is Mary Sutter.

The Page 69 Test: Winter Sisters.

--Marshal Zeringue