Madeleine E. Robins's Blog: Madeleine Robins: Journal, page 3

Cake is a Frosting Delivery System

This post was originally published in 2009 at Bookviewcafe.com

Perhaps its because my mother didnt bake, scorned baking, but allowed me to bake. Or maybe it has nothing to do with her and I just love to bake. Maybe (o, probably) its because I love to eatbaked goods: good bread, rolls, brioche, croissants, pie, cake. When my husband discovered that I could make apple pie from scratch, he was awed: his mother isnt a baker either.  And last year when he asked what I wanted for my birthday, I...

Writers Drinking Coffee

In which I am interviewed, and talk about writing, research, and being in the right place at the right time.

Episode 43 An Interview with Madeleine Robins

Armed and Dangerous

A couple of decades ago one of my room mates press-ganged me into taking a class with her.  She was already taking fencing, but her teacher had decided to offer stage combat, and needed more students.  Itll be great!  You can write it off as research! Since I was then working on The Stone War, an urban fantasy that takes place in New York City, circa 2018, I didnt see any present use for such research, but I love me a good swashbuckler, so I signed up.  And it was love at first swash.

Stage...

The Big Necessity

I sometimes find, when Im reading, that Ive picked up a book (or two or ten) with a particular theme for no specific reasononly to discover, a little way down the line, that there was a reason, only I didnt know it yet. Its like Im researching before I realize whator whyIm researching. Example: before I started working on Sold for Endless Rue which is set in medieval Italy* I found myself rereading The Name of the Rose, The Doomsday Book, and several of Sharan Newmans excellent Catherine...

Boxing Week Sale

[image error]The Holidays are winding down. Need to relax with something good to read? Just in time, Book View Cafe is having a Boxing Week sale. Every book in our store is 25% off. No need for coupons, the discount is taken automagically at checkout.

Weasel Words

Real Ingredients.

I can’t even. What does that mean? Very specifically, it means nothing. It is meant to evoke authenticity: ingredients you are familiar with, so that you feel what you’re buying or eating is healthier, more mindful, more authentic, less processed.

It’s one of those terms that makes my teeth hurt. And because it’s a non-term, because it doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s not actionable. Anyone can use it to mean anything. Hellman’s Mayonnaise (or Best Foods Mayonnaise, on...

Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of a Hat

[image error]I watched a lot of cartoons as a young person. Like, a lot. In New York City, where I grew up, we rejoiced in the–at the time–enormous selection of 7 TV channels (including the educational channel), and by 5 o’clock every evening at least two of them were showing cartoons: Warner Bros., primarily, but Woody Woodpecker and the Hanna Barbera slate, and Tom and Jerry… and those frankly kind of awful limited-animation series like Jonny Quest and Clutch Cargo. I imbibed them with a growing critical sense (if you...

“Do You Know Any 3-Year-Olds That are Criminal or National Security Threats to the United States?”

Disclaimer: I am not a professional in psychiatry, and my information is several decades old. That being said…

Long ago and far away, I did editorial work for a psychiatrist whose specialty was early childhood depression. Given that my degree is in Theatre, and the sort of writing I do is mostly resolutely fictional, this might seem like a bad match, but Paul was not a native English speaker (his first two languages were Arabic and Spanish), and what he wanted me to do was help him draft arti...

One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor

[image error]There ain’t, I am reliably informed, no accounting for taste. But from time to time I come across something that I have heard lauded for years and years, and my reaction when I finally get to it is… eh. Or worse, urgh. Like: where is this film/book/play that sounded so great? I wanted to see that one.

A few weeks ago Spartacus was on, and my husband and I realized we’d heard about it forever and had never seen it. And it was directed by Stanley Kubrick, whom we both admire. So we watched it…...

Raised in a Barn: A Souvenir of Hope

My parents bought the Barn in 1958. I know this for a number of reasons–mostly documentation I have from when it was transferred (along with a voluminous paper trail) to me in the 1990s. But I have one memento where the date is engraved  forever. The bell at the left memorializes the date of acquisition, and my parents’ hopes and plans for the barn, and not incidentally, their marriage and family.

With the wisdom of hindsight, it is perhaps hubris to put that sort of thing in a brass object t...