Robin Sloan is an American author. His debut novel, ''

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore ''Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' is a 2012 novel by American writer Robin Sloan. It was chosen as one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', was a ''New York Times'' Editor's Choice, and was on the New York Times Har ...

'', 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 Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

, where he co-founded the

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

''Oats.'' He was also a columnist and cartoonist for '' The State News'' student newspaper. He graduated in 2002 with a degree in economics from the

Eli Broad College of Business The Eli Broad College of Business is the business college at Michigan State University. The college has programs in accounting, finance, human resource management, management, marketing, supply chain management, and hospitality business, ...

. He moved to

St. Petersburg, Florida St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the ...

, 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 Netwo ...

. 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 A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...

''Annabel Scheme'' in 2009 through

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

. 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 A Creative Commons NonCommercial license (CC NC, CC BY-NC or NC license) is a Creative Commons license which a copyright holder can apply to their media to give public permission for anyone to reuse that media only for noncommercial activities. ...

. 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 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 M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'''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 Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, na ...

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 Sunol ( es, Suñol) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Alameda County, California. Located in the Sunol Valley of the East Bay, the population was 913 at the 2010 census. It is best known as the location of the Sunol Water ...

Personal life

Sloan resides in Rockridge, Oakland, California.

Bibliography

*''Annabel Scheme'' (2010) *''

'' (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