Robin Cutler’s early life was split between Manhattan and a farm near a tiny town in Virginia called Casanova. An only child, she never felt like one because of the menagerie collected by her mother, Jane Hall, a former screenwriter at MGM, who had the best years of her life before Robin was born. But that’s another story. Robin’s siblings included an ocelot, multiple German Shepherds, farm cats, snooty cats, and a rescued screech owl (Sidney), who flew on Eastern Airlines in a modified Nantucket basket. In his salad days, her dad, Robert F. Cutler, founded and managed the popular Suffern County Theater. Also before she was born.

Robin decided she wanted to be a historian in the ninth grade. Not much of a party girl, she grew up in a world without any modern digital devices and was happiest in the stacks of various libraries. Her love of books led her to earning a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. But most of her future career would be as a public historian. Highlights have included working for the National Endowment for Humanities when author Lynne Cheney was chairman, co-producing an Emmy-nominated dramatic series for PBS, working with several Native American tribes to chronicle their histories and culture on film and video, publishing three nonfiction books, two of which took way too long to research; these are featured on this website.

She has also experienced the joy and privilege of a 25-year marriage and helping to raise two extraordinary daughters — we had our own menagerie. She is now the proud grandmother of two teenage grandsons.  After a lifetime on the East Coast, Robin joined her family in California in 2020.

Not enough? For a more traditional bio:

Historian Robin Cutler has worked outside of academia for most of her professional career. Between 1979 and 1984, she was the project director and co-producer of ROANOAK, an  Emmy-nominated miniseries for PBS’  American Playhouse. The series recreated the clash of cultures between Native Americans and Elizabethan explorers in what is now North Carolina. New York Times critic John O’Connor found it “admirably ambitious” and “quietly and consistently compelling.”

As a Program Officer at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and a Contributing Editor for the American Historical Association’s Perspectives, Robin continued to bring extraordinary stories to a broad audience. While president of a Washington D.C. not-for-profit, Media Resource Associates, Inc. (1989-1999), she joined forces with several Native American tribes to document their histories  and cultures. Robin was the writer and a producer of Indian America: A Gift from the Past, an award-winning PBS documentary that explores how archaeology and oral tradition help define the Makah Indian Nation. MRA also created a collection of oral history resources with the Wampanoag in Aquinnah (Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts), and more than a dozen cultural resource videos with the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana.

Robin’s first book, A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Rowman & Littlefield/Bloomsbury) was named a “notable Naval Book of 2007” by the U.S. Naval Institute and featured on the History News Network. Look for an updated version of this timeless story with a new Prologue and Epilogue as a paperback and e-book in May 2026. Press and reviews can be found here.

In 2012, Robin published The Laughing Desert, the story of Arizona humorist Dick Wick Hall’s nationally syndicated Salome Sun. The book includes a replica of the 1925-1926 illustrated paper and a Foreword by Arizona State Historian Marshall Trimble.  Part of an Arizona Centennial Legacy Project, it was featured in the Yuma Sun on November 9, 2012.

Such Mad Fun (2016) explores the impact of popular culture on women’s identity through the story of author and screenwriter Jane Hall’s unprecedented journey from Salome, Arizona, to Depression-era Manhattan and on to Hollywood during its Golden Age. Excerpts from the book have been featured in Vanity Fair and The Daily Beast.  Such Mad Fun was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2016; it is also the Foreword INDIES book of the year award Gold winner (biography). Press and reviews can be found here.

Robin also taught in universities for almost a decade and was a mentor at Hunter College for several years. She supports organizations such as the Sierra Club, PBS, the Doe Fund, the Oakland Public Library, and Humane World for Animals. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University; her professional memberships include the Author’s Guild, the Organization of American Historians, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) and Phi Beta Kappa.

To reach Robin please use this website’s contact form.

*Robin was known professionally as Robin C. Maw until 1994.