Robin Sloan
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Robin Sloan is an American author. His
debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...
, '' Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'', was published in 2012.


Early life

Sloan was born to a home economics teacher and an appliance salesman. He grew up in
Troy, Michigan Troy is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, United States. Its population was 87,294 at the 2020 U.S. census, making Troy the most populous city in the county and the 13th most-populous municipality in the state. Troy is a northern suburb of Me ...
, where he attended Wattles Elementary School. He graduated from Athens High School in 1998. Sloan attended Michigan State University, where he co-founded the literary magazine ''Oats.'' He was also a columnist and cartoonist for ''
The State News ''The State News'' is the student newspaper of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. It is supported by a combination of advertising revenue and a $7.50 refundable tax that students pay at each semester's matriculation. Though ...
'' student newspaper. He graduated in 2002 with a degree in economics from the Eli Broad College of Business. He moved to St. Petersburg, Florida, after graduation for a fellowship at the
Poynter Institute The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism school and research organization in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. The school is the owner of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' newspaper and the International Fact-Checking Netw ...
. In 2003, he founded the SnarkMarket blog with some friends. Sloan moved to the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
in 2004 to work at
Current TV Current TV was an American television channel which broadcast from August 1, 2005, to August 20, 2013. Prior INdTV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, with Ronald Burkle, each held a sizable stake in Current TV. Comcast and DirecTV each held a smalle ...
as a media strategist/interactive producer.


Career

Sloan crowdfunded his novella ''Annabel Scheme'' in 2009 through Kickstarter. After successfully funding the project, he quit his job at Current to write the novella full time. About a thousand copies of the novella were printed and the novella was released under a Creative Commons NonCommercial license. Prior to working as an author, Sloan worked at
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
as a media manager, helping news companies condense their reports to Twitter's 140 characters tweet limit. Sloan's first novel ''Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' was released in 2012. The story began as a 6,000 word short story published onto Sloan's personal website and
Kindle Store The Kindle Store is an online e-book e-commerce store operated by Amazon as part of its retail website and can be accessed from any Amazon Kindle, Fire tablet or Kindle mobile app. At the launch of the Kindle in November 2007, the store had mo ...
. The novel was listed in ''
San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...
'''s list of top 100 books of 2012. It is about a laid-off Silicon Valley tech worker who begins working at a dusty bookstore with very few customers, only to start discovering one secret after another. The mysterious old books, along with the store's owner, lead to a 500‑year‑old secret society. His second novel ''Sourdough'' was released in September 2017. It was listed as one of the ''San Francisco Chronicle'''s top 100 books of 2017. His speculative fiction short story ''The'' ''Conspiracy Museum'' was published in ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'' in May 2020 as part of the "Shadowlands" project exploring conspiracy thinking in the United States''.'' Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan produce olive oil under the Fat Gold brand. They harvest off of leased land in Sunol, California.


Personal life

Sloan resides in
Rockridge, Oakland, California Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland hills and north of the interse ...
.


Bibliography

*''Annabel Scheme'' (2010) *'' Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' (2012) *''Ajax Penumbra 1969'' (2013) *''Sourdough: A Novel'' (2017) *''Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate'' (2020) (Novella; "neither sequel nor prequel to the original Annabel Scheme novella published in 2009".) *''The Suitcase Clone'' (2022)


References


External links

*
MSU ''Oats'' Magazine websiteSnarkMarket blog website''New Liberal Arts''
published by SnarkMarket Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American male novelists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American male writers {{US-novelist-stub Eli Broad College of Business alumni