We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Robin Payes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Robin below.

Hi Robin, thanks for joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

I have been blessed to experience many versions of the writing/creative life. From working in television and radio news and public affairs to organizing a national Get Out the Women’s Vote campaign during the second wave of the women’s movement, to consulting in marketing for an international women’s health NGO, to transitioning to science and education writing as editor-in-chief for an online portal for parents and educators about the science of learning. Having a wide variety of work experiences and a diversity of clients has made much of my work enriching, and helping clients achieve their outreach goals and reach new audiences to be rewarding. Towards the end of my consulting career, I worked as a subcontractor to a government consulting firm for a brain institute at the National Institutes of Health in press and public relations. I was approaching the 3-month point of that contract when my supervisor at the consulting firm invited me to lunch. It was the first time she had reached out to me since I’d first been hired.
Over salads, I found out that this was not to be a congratulatory meeting. After interrogating me about how I found the work she launched into the true motivation behind the invitation. The client had complained about my work: I was too creative and had too many ideas. She suggested I start looking for another job.
I was stunned. It had never before occurred to me that something I took to be an asset could be seen as a liability.
But I had three young kids at home, the job was a short commute and I could work part-time hours that gave me the flexibility to take them to school and after school activities, and be at their games and performances. Not to mention health insurance. I needed that job. I asked her if there was something I could do. She suggested I just follow the job description.
Now, I have never been much of an order taker. I come from a long line of outside-the-box thinkers. My father, then a bookkeeper and later a CPA< had been kicked out of the Officer Training Corps in WWII for suggesting ways his division could save money. My grandfather, an immigrant from Russia (now Ukraine) came to this county, lost the sight of one eye working on a bridge engineering project, got fired, and struck out on his own to build up a successful men’s clothing manufacturing business from scratch. It thrived–as did his family–during the depths of the Depression.
As for me, I felt stuck.
From that point on, I had nothing more to say. Literally. I became an order taker. I asked my co-workers, on the same contract as me, to kick me under the table anytime, in a meeting, I opened my mouth to offer an idea.
I was miserable but soldiered on as best I could.
It was then I changed my mindset to what was possible. The creativity I wasn’t using in the office gave me the impetus to indulge in something I found most rewarding: writing fiction. Science fiction, in fact. Time travel. Clearing my headspace for storytelling opened up whole new worlds–ones where infinite possibility was the coin of the realm.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Growing up, I was bad at science and math. Needed a tutor to squeak through high school chemistry. Enrolled in biology and “baby” physics in college to complete my science requirements. Even though my dad was a CPA, and could do complex math in his head, the math gene skipped me.

I was equally unadept as an artist – my very gifted mother’s avocation. Though she enrolled me in art classes and summer art programs, and bought me a sketchpad while I tagged along when she would set up an easel to paint landscapes en plein air, I could never quite make a brush replicate what was in my mind’s eye. I blame it on being left-handed.

Still, I loved learning about what made numbers meaningful. What it felt like for an artist to create. And I found things I did love: language and writing; drama and dance; history and psychology. And learning for its own sake.

So I studied French and drama in college; communications and developmental psychology in grad school. And I wrote.

I was lucky to find jobs in broadcast, cable and eventually, public relations. But I remained a generalist. It would take me another 25 years before I stumbled upon my own unique gift — “interpreting” scientific and health research — particularly in neuroscience — to bridge the gap between science and popular understanding.

As a social marketing consultant and founder of WordsWork Communications, I work with scientists, researchers and educators to apply communications techniques to increase understanding of health innovations and discoveries, to increase public awareness and to help promote healthy behaviors. To get the message across, I also explore multiple forms of creative expression – from live engagement to music, from traditional to cutting-edge social media.

I’m also a mom to three children. It was seeing them grow up and discover their own gifts that inspired me to try my hand at fiction writing. As a carpool mom, I would listen in on their conversations and realize they and their friends were all uniquely gifted in many ways — Renaissance geniuses in the making — if we could only recognize and nurture their talents.

This led me to a thought exercise: if a Leonardo da Vinci (the ultimate Renaissance genius; also a leftie) were born today, would we even recognize him? Could he become the Leonardo he was meant to be? The exercise turned into writing inspiration and resulted in a screenplay and novel, Edge of Yesterday, about a STEM-smart girl who, for the middle school science fair, decides to create what she thinks are Leonardo’s plans for a time machine. Her goal: to meet the Renaissance genius in person in his own time to find out the secrets of his success. And get back in time to win the science fair.

So life means evolving who you are and what you are able to bring forth. Edge of Yesterday has evolved into a four-book adventure accompanied by an interactive digital-plus-experiential learning platform where everyone is a potential Renaissance genius, and where curious teens can dream and experiment, dive in to learning, and bring their own stories to life.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

As a wordsmith with many years and vocations behind me, I have learned how stories can draw you in, making the remote past—perhaps uncomfortably—present. And the past echoes with lessons which, when applied to today, help us innovate forward. I write science fiction for teens. As I was researching Saving Time, part of the Edge of Yesterday book series (EOY) —wherein a STEM-smart girl builds Leonardo da Vinci’s plans for a time machine that Leonardo designed—I noticed striking parallels between da Vinci’s times and our own: pandemics (think Black Death), climate change (the fifteenth-century experienced a mini-Ice Age), massive social upheaval (Inquisition, anyone?), and a blossoming of new technologies (printing press, linear perspective, double-shelled dome), innovations in art and science, and a populist form of republican governance in Florence.
Edge of Yesterday adventures follow modern STEMinista Charley Morton’s adventures through time to meet—and learn from—masters of innovation
It struck me that the true genius of the master may not have been so much his unparalleled artistic talents or engineering prowess, as his curiosity, and a unique ability to find connections between the many fields that captured his attention. Leonardo said, “Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
Leonardo da Vinci pursued ways of seeing and being that are a renewed focus for 21st- century learning.

What’s old is new again
This wisdom is suddenly relevant, thanks to a 2020 report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), “Branches from the Same Tree: Integration of the Humanities and Art with Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.” The NASEM report supports the value and relevance of MASTERY’s approach. In particular, the report mentions that the integration of these disciplines—STEM, Arts and Humanities—documents, among its outcomes: increased critical thinking abilities, higher-order thinking and communication skills, improved visuo-spatial reasoning, and general engagement and enjoyment of learning.”

Quantum alchemy
Integrating STEM, arts and humanities seems an innovation straight out of Leonardo’s playbook. In the Maestro’s day, such transdisciplinary mastery would have looked like a linear equation: math + arts + sciences + technology + engineering + reflection (social skills) through the “yarns” of our stories.

But our is not a straight-line world. At the Edge of Yesterday, MASTERY has taken a quantum leap forward to fit our vastly more complex and interconnected times, integrating mindset, arts, storytelling, technology, economy, reflection and youth. In partnership with nonprofit organizations, schools, libraries and universities, we have pivoted from that straight-line approach to seed new ways of learning, to a zigzagged approach that shows how we are constantly unlearning, and relearning connections that reflect more closely to the way we experience navigating our ever-more interconnected world.

MASTERY prepares students for workforce success
To make such integration meaningful and relevant in the lives of the GenZ youth we serve, storytelling becomes a key framework. In our 2020 summer internship program for students from D.C., Maryland and New York, we time-traveled together to the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance, as research for an upcoming book in the EOY series. Students learned the art of narrative journalism to research and write fact-based stories—on The Great Migration, the history of jazz, women’s suffrage, and the economy of the Roaring ‘20s—to recreate a world that previews our own: a country suffering through a flu pandemic; its aftermath with advances to public health; winning the vote for women; race riots; jobs destruction and innovations, with new technologies from telephones and radio to the advance of “talking” pictures to bring the world closer.
Times not unlike our own. Seeing this reflection of the past, we discussed how the relationship, and how understanding the connections unlocks new ways of seeing and being that can free us to innovate forward.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As you might glean from those challenges and misunderstandings I’ve described, for me, the most rewarding aspect of being a creative is the ability to be myself. As someone who struggled to fit in, to go along with the crowd, to tamper down my excitement about trying new ideas or new ways of seeing the world, expressing my creativity gives me the freedom to soar. And my mission to imbue that same spirit in young people–to give them the tools, the support, the practice and the courage (read: heart) to express themselves freely, to not find themselves criticized or censored, to dive into MASTERY on terms that are both grounded in fact and embroidered by their own forms of creative expression for the purpose of learning is amazing.
What could be better than that?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://edgeofyesterdaybooks.com; https://edgeofyesterday.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinstevenspayes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobinStevensPayesAuthor
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinstevenspayes/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinpayes
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RobinStevensPayes
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@robinstevenspayes/ https://www.threads.net/@robinstevenspayes

Image Credits
Melissa Brandstatter Judy Gee Vanessa Carillo