Robin McLean

This just in from Publishers Weekly about the new collection: 

 

"McLean (Pity the Beast) offers up a gritty and well-honed collection of mischief, desperation, and disaster in the American West. ...With merciless prose and a bold vision, McLean continues to impress."

 

Get'em Young, Treat'em Tough, Tell'em Nothing comes out on October 18 in the US and UK.  Pre-order here.

 

Join us at the launch with the GrubStreet Debut Series in Boston (10.18.22).  all US and UK tour news is here.

 

--NYC, S. Hadley, Santa Fe, Dallas, Denver, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Reno, London...

also Minneapolis (Twin Cities Book Fest --

 

Read the kind comments about the stories here...

 

Pre-order the paperback of Pity the Beast here (with the Coetzee quote in the cover!)

 

Thanks for reading. Come back for more news soon.

The BOA folks asked me to write a blog post about what it has meant to me to have won the BOA Short Fiction Prize. I do whatever they ask of me over there, so here it is....

This is to encourage all other short fiction writers to submit to the 2017 prize, open submissions April 1 - to May 31. SO SUBMIT!

Thanks BOA, again and again.

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Well, Happy Day.

My story "House Full of Feasting" appears in the latest issue of CINCINNATI REVIEW.

Order issue 13.2 on the website, or subscribe -- even better.

Thanks so much Nicola Mason, Michael Griffith and all the CR team. I love this journal and am thrilled this is my second story to be published there. It's so cool to appear with so many great writers and one of my heroes -- Steve Almond.

Happy New Year!

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Thanks Nathan Goldman for the fantastic new REVIEW of Reptile House in KENYON REVIEW .

"...an approving comparison to Flannery O’Connor is warranted...Her prose is energetic and lyrical without excising ugliness... which it folds into its world with an elegance that astounds. This skill with language makes possible the stories’ portraits of human beings, so revealing in their unsentimental bleakness, and it is in this unique style that the worldhood of Reptile House emerges." -- READ ALL OF IT .

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Reading with COLUM MCCANN and the KAITLYN GREENRIDGEat the Muse and the Marketplace 2016 Bash -- Grub Gone Drag -- a sold out show in Boston on April 30.

The headliner: Martha Graham Cracker -- the Drag queen of Philly.

Alter Ego.

Fuzzy Blue Bolero.

Boots.

Bridge.

Listen to the story...HERE

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MUD SEASON REVIEW. VOL 2 is hot off the presses. Click for the online preview and BUY THE PRINT VERSION. Thanks for the hard work of the MSR STAFF (Rebecca, Natasha, Brett, Lee-Ann, Margaret, Rike (I am forgetting like 30 people) and the BURLINGTON WRITERS WORKSHOP for all they do to keep writing vibrant in Vermont.

Also THANK YOU for inviting me to the wonderful and jam packed reading May 7 at the HOTEL VERMONT with three amazing writers -- ALISON PRINE, SEAN PRENTISS , and RALPH CULVER.

My story "The True End to All Sad Times" appears in the print version here as well as a cool (my humble opinion) interview that editor and chief REBECCA STARKS whipped up. I'm honored. Thanks PETER BIELLO for being the originator and shepherd of so much of this. Read More 

I hate driving in Boston -- have driven a million miles (this seems low) around the US, checked off all 50 states ages ago, and no trouble, but Boston gets me.

So the solution has been found.

Made it to Grub Gone Drag no problem.

Thanks Grubstreet and Muse and all my friends. Micheal Carolan, Peter Corbett and Dona Bolding especially.

Martha Graham Cracker is my new idol. I cannot walk in high heals like that, no way dance, no way climb on chairs, railings, etc. ( SEE PREVIOUS POST).

Just just just..........the sparkles in the eye shadow. The sequins.

No words.

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The theme was "Alter Egos" -- and I had this little story just waiting, called "Criminal Finally."

I love these contests. Sometimes they work.

I just found out that I won this contest put on by The Drum, a fantastic Listen-To-It lit mag out of Boston and Grubstreet, my How-to-Do-Everything-in-Writing Heroes for the Muse and the Marketplace conference next week.

My reward is that The Drum will record my story for all to hear and I will get to READ IT with COLUM MCCANN at the Muse and the Marketplace 2016 Bash -- Grub Gone Drag -- a sold out show in Boston on April 30.

The headliner is Martha Graham Cracker -- the Drag queen of Philly.

Might find wig? Put my NH duds away?

Submit, submit, submit...

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Hello Plymouth New Hampshire and the Newfound Lake area. I will be reading from Reptile House at the Pease Public Library in Plymouth on Wed April 20 from 4-6. Thanks Joan Bowers and Winnie Hohlt for setting this up. Thanks for the Pease Library for having me.

Drop by if you are around!

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