Dean Robbins is a children’s author and journalist in Madison, Wisconsin. His picture book Two Friends Having Tea is forthcoming from Scholastic.

Dean is the editor of Isthmus, a weekly newspaper with a reputation for hard-hitting investigative reporting and authoritative arts coverage. Isthmus is a perennial winner in the Milwaukee Press Club Awards, Wisconsin’s premier journalism competition. Dean has won six Milwaukee Press Club Awards himself, including “Best Critical Review of the Arts” for a consideration of Duke Ellington.

Dean’s arts criticism and feature stories have appeared in daily newspapers, weekly newspapers, and magazines from coast to coast. He has interviewed Robert Redford, Yoko Ono, Ella Fitzgerald, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, and other major cultural figures. He wrote the essay on Miles Davis’ “Sketches of Spain” for the Grammy Awards when the album was inducted in the National Academy of Recording Arts & Science’s Hall of Fame. He served as the jazz critic for the national publications In These Times and Arete for many years. His weekly television column is syndicated in over a dozen publications, including Milwaukee Magazine, the Oklahoma Gazette, Des Moines Cityview, the Omaha Reader, and the San Antonio Current. He has also covered President Obama as part of the White House Press Pool.

Dean has also read his commentaries on public radio.

Articles

TV Columns

Laura Dern finds intermittent serenity in ‘Enlightened’

Laura Dern joins the list of brilliant actresses (Edie Falco, Laura Linney, Toni Collette) who have made cable TV an...

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Music Writing

Village Voice: Charlie Parker’s Triumph

Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker is a tantalizing title for Gary Giddins’ new biography (Beech Tree Books/Morrow, $15.95)....

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Other Writing

An Interview with Robert Redford

Sundance Cinemas 608 arrives in Madison trailing a whiff of glamour. The new theater at Hilldale Mall is the...

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