Ike's Canyon Ranch
A Writer's Far Outpost
Robin McLean worked as lawyer and then a potter in the woods of Alaska before turning to writing. Her first story collection Reptile House won the 2013 BOA Editions Fiction Prize and was twice a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Short Story Prize. Her debut novel Pity the Beast was published November 2021 by And Other Stories, was called "a work of crazy brilliance" and noted as a best book of fiction of the 2021 in The Guardian.
Her second story collection, Get'em Young, Treat'em Tough, Tell'em Nothing is forthcoming, also from And Other Stories, in October 2022.
Learn lots more about Robin McLean at her website.
Robin has taught writing for ten years, at Clark University, UMass Amherst, U of Montana Western and at retreats and workshops across the US and Europe.
She teaches writing at Ike's and around the world, online with The Loft of Minneapolis, Hugo House in Seattle, Burlington Writers Workshop in Burlington, Vermont and Love Street Writers of Melbourne Australia.
J M Coetzee:
‘Not since Faulkner have I read American prose so bristling with life and particularity.’
Best of 2021, The Guardian
Or find a local indie bookstore
PARIS REVIEW Best of 2015 List: "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."
What writers say about working with Robin here.
