Premise: Robin Hobb is the pen name of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden (born March 5, 1952), an American writer. She is best known for the books set in the Realm of the Elderlings, which started in 1995 with the publication of "Assassin's Apprentice", the first book in the Farseer trilogy.
Hypothesis: Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden's initals are MALO, which could be scrambled around to form the word "loam."