Robin McKinley
Fantasy fiction and fairy tale retelling have a long tradition in American literature, and the decades following the mid-twentieth century saw writers who brought those older forms into fresh territory. Robin McKinley, born on November 16, 1952, in Warren, emerged from that period as a novelist and children's writer whose work centers on fantasy and the retelling of classic fairy tales.
McKinley was educated at Gould Academy and Bowdoin College before building a career around fiction that returns again and again to myth and folklore. Her 1984 novel The Hero and the Crown is among her most recognized titles and earned her the Newbery Medal. Other notable works include Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast, Deerskin, and Sunshine, each representing a different direction within her body of work.
Those titles give a reasonable cross-section of what McKinley has contributed across her career, and the honors she has received reflect a range of recognition within the field. In addition to the Newbery Medal, she has received the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
The most recent significant recognition came in 2022, when the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named McKinley the 39th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master. That designation places her in a specific, numbered line of writers the association has chosen to honor with the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, and it stands as the clearest formal acknowledgment of the body of work she has produced as a novelist and children's writer.
Quotes by Robin McKinley
Robin McKinley's insights on:
Your Chalice, Master, sees all things clearly, which is both her strength and her weakness.
Nothing?′ said Corlath. ‘I said there were two things. I have told you the first. You told us what you saw as you saw it. But this is the second thing: you spoke in the Old Tongue, what we call the Language of the Gods, that none knows any more but kings and sorcerers, and those they wish to teach it to. The language I just spoke to you, that you did not recognize- I was repeating the words you had said yourself, a moment before.
Reread your favorite novel, the one you only let yourself read any more when you’re sick in bed.
Muffin cups in my bakery were real sorcerer’s apprentice material, like the dough for the cinnamon rolls every morning could have stood in for The Blob.
Mr. Responsible Media was looking rebellious, but this was my country. I was the Cinnamon Roll Queen and most of those assembled were my devoted subjects.
I’ve always been fascinated by the grassroots folktale level of a culture, and as a storyteller, I have to follow what seems to be leading me on.
It was one of the good things about him. Whatever he might not be telling you, what he did tell you was the truth.
What was she to say? “The prodigal has returned? The mutineer wishes to be reinstated? The subordinate, having gone to a great deal of trouble to prove her commander wrong, has come back and promises to be a good little subordinate hereafter, or at least until next time?