Robin McKinley was born on November 16, 1952, in Warren, Ohio. Her father was in the Navy and the family traveled a great deal. Books were her constant. She began to remember places by recalling what books she'd read where. She says she still uses books to keep track of her life.

Even when she was very young, she wanted to be a writer, and she cannot remember a time when her stories were not about "shy, bumbling girls who turned out to be heroes."

Her first novel, Beauty, was accepted by the first publisher to whom she submitted it. She was 26. Robin lives in England with her husband, writer Peter Dickinson, as well as three dogs, a horse, and four hundred rosebushes.


Quotes:

(on being a late bloomer) "I didn't discover boys because they didn't discover me, and because their standards of discovery seemed too odd to be aspired to."

"I don't write for adolescents, and I'm quite cranky about this. I write for whoever likes the sort of stories I write."

"Writing has always been the other side of reading for me; it never occurred to me not to make up stories. Once I got old enough to realize that authorship existed as a thing one might aspire to, I knew it was for me. I even majored in English literature in college, a good indication of my fine bold disdain for anything so trivial as earning a living."

"I think I've discovered reality after all. I'm astonished at how interesting it is."

Books (also see Void_Ptr's list above):

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories

My Father is in the Navy

Rowan

thanks to:
http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~achristi/mckinley.html
http://www.sff.net/people/robin-mckinley/


Editor's note: As outlined by Lucy-S at SFF Net, the site referenced above has gone offline. As of March 2017, you can find Robin McKinley at http://www.robinmckinley.com.