Skip to content

Voyage ATL Magazine: Check Out Roni Robbins’ Story

Check Out Roni Robbins’s Story – Voyage ATL Magazine | ATL City Guide

Today we’d like to introduce you to Roni Robbins.

Hi Roni, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
The assignment for my first journalism class as a Hauppauge High School (NY) senior was to write the potential opening copy for the yearbook. Students took turns reading their submissions and a classmate suggested to the teacher that I read mine. I did, and the room was silent, so I stopped reading. The motivational teacher urged, “keep going,” and those two words set the stage for my future career. My submission was chosen to lead the yearbook. I wrote a lot of other content for it, too, while editing my classmates’ pieces as the designated copy editor. A poem I wrote also was chosen for the front of my senior class commencement program.
A journalism scholarship and in-state tuition to the University of South Carolina followed. While pursuing a journalism degree I also moved up the ranks of the college newspaper from cub reporter to editor-in-chief in my senior year. My former career began with six years as a daily newspaper reporter in Florida and Alabama; six years at weekly specialty newspapers (Jewish and business of healthcare); and four years as an associate editor in those specialty areas. I’ve also freelanced for some 25 years for such publications as New York Daily News, WebMD, Mother Nature Network, and Industry Dive, with articles in the Huffington Post and Forbes. More recently I’ve been a freelance health reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, my second stint writing for the pub, and Medscape/WebMD, where I was previously an editor before being downsized in October 2023.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Definitely not a smooth road. I’ve had to work night shifts and wee hours of the morning shifts. On a few occasions, I’ve showed up on crime scenes to report on an incident before police arrived and talked to the family of suspected criminals.

I almost crashed in a hot air balloon previewing Bele Chere as a summer intern for the Asheville Citizen-Times and I fended off seasickness while covering the first post-Challenger launch from a Coast Guard cutter in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Canaveral. When a beached whale was the subject not far from there, and I was wearing a dress suit, I kicked off my shoes and waded into the ocean to talk to those rescuing the mammal.

I’ve also had to stalk potential sources (in person, by phone and email) who didn’t want to talk to a reporter. Sometimes they begrudgingly offered a statement.

Not to mention the long exhausting hours to follow a story to fruition for very little pay and the heartbreak of being downsized after nearly four decades as a journalist. Still, I wouldn’t do anything else but be a writer, and certainly it’s had its very exciting and memorable moments along the way.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a writer, a journalist, a reporter, an editor, a poet, and an author. In terms of journalism, I’ve been specializing in recent years in healthcare: the business of healthcare for Medscape/WebMD and wellness pieces for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But in the past, I’ve specialized in business, environmental, culture, women, and Jewish news.

My proudest accomplishment is writing a novel based on my grandfather’s life and adventures, Hands of Gold, which was professionally published, and winning six awards

for it, including international and global book awards, being featured in a big Atlanta book festival with such big-name authors as Nikki Haley, Jon Meacham, Michael Oren, Jodi Picoult, Andrew Young, Bernie Marcus, and (remotely) Benjamin Netanyahu, among others. The book also was in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gift shop and featured in The Jerusalem Post.

Other than that, perhaps my other journalism awards; scooping bigger publications, on occasion, with my stories; and interviewing celebrities, including Andy Gibb, Hank Aaron, Wolf Blitzer, and Usher.

What sets me apart, in my opinion, is my persistence, determination, and endurance. I also take assignments and projects that others won’t and push myself well beyond what others might. For example, I spin for three hours every Sunday without fail with a heartrate monitor to keep me in a fat-burning zone. It took me some 20 years total from start to finish to gain a publisher (about 7 years on and off to write/edit and 13 years of 

queries). I lost my first publisher after working with her for two years but gained another six months later. Others may have given up long before then. I stayed the course.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I certainly feel lucky to have picked the right field in high school and to have the good blessing of sticking with that path for nearly 40 years.

While it took me 20 years to find a professional publisher for my novel, it only took one suggestion from a cousin, who is also an author, to find my first publisher and then a suggestion from another cousin-author to land my current publisher. So maybe it wasn’t my time before, or the novel needed to cook a bit until the right moment.

I sometimes got lucky with an opportunity to talk to certain news sources, such as Usher, or even entering specific writing contests that garnered a win for me.

Over the years, I’ve felt like my wishes were granted with small professional successes, such as when my novel hit No. 1 on two Amazon Kindle bestseller lists recently. The key,

for me, is to recognize the magical and miraculous experience of achievement and take a moment to savor the feeling of fulfillment because, unfortunately, it may not last long.

Pricing:

  • Hands of Gold, $17.95 (list) paperback
  • Hands of Gold, $6.99 e-book

Contact Info:

Leave a Reply