Robyn Carter Writer Educator Storyteller

Reviews, Blogs & Articles

Connecticut Community Foundation Impact Story •

Grassroots Community-Building Seeds Shelter for Naugatuck Valley’s Housing-Insecure

In one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, the Naugatuck Valley Project (NVP) tackles the need for quality, affordable housing. Founded in 1983, NVP’s first success was the construction of 102 cooperative housing units. Since then, the organization has grown to include 23 congregations, labor unions, housing cooperatives, and community organizations committed to NVP’s mission of building “a broad-based organization for change that is initiated, organized, and led by low-income communities, working families, and people of color.”

Through decades of organizing and advocacy, Naugatuck Valley Project has found that successfully advocating for access to physical resources like shelter requires intangible but momentous shifts in attitude among municipal leaders in the towns NVP serves.
Cozy Ripples •

P-Valley Streaming on Hulu

P-Valley’s pilot episode opens in the aftermath of a hurricane, where we meet Autumn Night (who goes by a few other names too) fishing a stranger’s suitcase out of the murky water. She snatches the ID inside, along with a new identity. We learn through flashbacks that the disaster she fled is more manmade than natural, and she left a lot more behind than soggy furniture or black mold. After a bus ride to the fictional town of Chucalissa, Mississippi, Autumn wins an amateur night “booty battle” at a local shake joint called The Pynk, and finds a prickly, new family of sorts among the strippers on staff.
Web content •

12 Best Restaurants in Mobile

Mobile is Alabama’s gateway to the gulf and one of the state’s most historic cities. Although its larger neighbor, New Orleans, is known for its Mardi Gras celebration, the tradition actually originated in Mobile in 1702 when it was the capital of French Louisiana. Today, Mobile still hosts elaborate Mardi Gras celebrations each year featuring floats, street parties, and a more manageable number of tourists.

For our list of the 12 best restaurants in Mobile, we consulted a number of sources, from Al.com’s Barbecue Bucket List to the Alabama Tourism Department’s list of the state’s most famous 100 Dishes to sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. We considered factors like the type of cuisine, ambiance, price, and dog-friendliness.
Cozy Ripples •

PHYSICAL Streaming on Apple+

A disturbing, but delicious ‘80s flashback featuring shiny fashion and big hair, a Season 2 nod to Richard Simmons, and an honest and nuanced look at the psychosocial forces that feed an eating disorder.

Sheila Rubin (Rose Byrne) is a frustrated housewife who relies on heavy doses of ballet and bulimia to dull the blades of an especially ‘80s SoCal spin on the Feminine Mystique. When dance class is canceled, she finds salvation in the newborn aerobics craze, but success is not easy.
Playboy •

Strippers Unite: Exotic Dancers at the Bargaining Table

“Two, four, six, eight, don’t come here to masturbate!” sounds like something the Moral Majority chanted back in the Eighties outside a porn palace, but the slogan was our battle cry for fair treatment on the job. We had formed a picket line outside the Lusty Lady, a San Francisco nude theater that employed us as dancers, to demand better working conditions and to organize the nation’s first successful strippers’ union.