Robin McLean

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!

 Read More 

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 .

 Read More 

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

 Read More 

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.

 Read More 

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...

 Read More 

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!

 Read More 

THANKS to the Wednesday Night Writers at the Burlington Writers Workshop for welcoming me and sharing your wonderful stories and writing family. Thanks Peter Biello for setting it up and Rebecca Starks for your work with me in the Mud Season Review.

I LOVE BURLINGTON. See you on May 7th for the Mud Season Review Print Issue 2016 Launch Party.

 Read More 

One Dreams about getting on one of those Best of the Year Lists in the Paris Review

Some dreams come true...

Dec. 11, 2015 --I once sat on a loveseat for several nights in a row, watching a multipart PBS documentary on emotions. What I recall most vividly from this documentary is an experiment conducted on Jason, a young man with Asperger’s syndrome. As he watched a movie, Jason wore a pair of special glasses that allowed researchers to see exactly what he was looking at on the screen. In this way, they could see how Jason processed visual data, and how he created a kind of hierarchy of significance. One scene featured a dramatic and emotional encounter in the foreground—a man and woman, I think, embracing, kissing, whispering endearments—but Jason, as it turns out, was watching the very interesting chandelier in the background. I don’t mean to hard-heartedly ignore or make light of what the experiment reveals about Asperger’s syndrome, but it strikes me that there is an apt analogy here to fiction. This is what good writers do—come at drama indirectly, reverse foreground and background, disrupt conventional priorities, focus on and draw our attention to the “wrong” data. I was reminded of the chandelier when reading the remarkable stories in Robin McLean’s collection, Reptile House . There is no shortage of mayhem and menace in these stories, but they achieve a thrilling and disorienting power by refusing to pay commensurate attention to the life-and-death troubles of people. McLean does not shrink the world down to interpersonal conflict, but instead opens it up to achieve a cosmic perspective that somehow feels both dispassionate and compassionate (Chekhov’s trick). This opening up is wild, surprising, and not a little frightening. I suppose you could call these stories dark, but in their dazzling perspective I find them full of vitality and wonder. —Chris Bachelder The Throwback Special, U.S.! and Abbott Awaits.)

Hello Chris Bachelder! Gratitude till the end of Time.
 Read More 

Back in the saddle again after a little post massive road trip coma.

Please spread the word to NYC folk that Jim Story and I will be reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe this Tues, Oct 6th from 6 - 7:30.

HAVE YOU READ Jim's book? Ok, Problems of Translation.. READ it. I needed this book. You need this book. This book is hilarious, wise, full of adventure, intrigue, sweetness, sadness -- as it follows a fellow traveler, a man with DREAMS, and he chases them on and on. Sound familiar?

Come and hear Jim read!

Come say hi!

 Read More