Author profile

Robert E. Martin graduated with honors from Arthur Hill High School in 1972, where he was elected Senior Class Representative and also started his career in journalism publishing an underground school newspaper called ‘The Democratic Voice’.

Robert graduated cum laude from Albion College in 1976 majoring in pre-law and English and attended the University of Sussex in Brighton, England on scholarship for one year, time during which he also spent traveling extensively throughout Europe. 

Robert attended Thomas Cooley Law School for 18-months before deciding to  commence his professional career in journalism.  In 1979 he became Publisher & Editor of the Bay Area Review, which later changed its name to REVIEW Magazine, establishing the first and foremost bi-weekly publication of news, entertainment, and the arts, servicing the Great Lakes Bay Region on Saginaw, Bay & Midland counties, which celebrates its 46th anniversary in April of this year. 

In 1987, Robert also started the REVIEW Music Awards, which functioned like a local and regional version of the Grammy Awards, honoring regional musicians and artists in over 60 categories and genres. 

For his journalistic and community endeavors Robert received an All Area Arts Award from the Saginaw Community Enrichment Commission in 2019 and also has received proclamations from the State of Michigan and City of Saginaw for his tireless commitment to the REVIEW and the regional music and arts community. 

Throughout the nearly five-decade expanse of his career Robert conducted exclusive in-depth interviews with pivotal authors, artists, and political & cultural figures, including such luminaries as novelists Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller, musicians such as Art Garfunkel and Janet Jackson, and politicians and political figures such as Jennifer Granholm and Abbie Hoffman, to name but a few.