David Robbins

David Robbins

David L. Robbins was born in Richmond, Virginia. He grew up in Sandston, a small town by the airport. His father was among the first to sit behind the new radar screens in the air traffic control tower. Both parents, Sam and Carol, were veterans of WWII. Sam saw action in the Pacific, especially at Pearl Harbor. In 1976, David graduated from the College of William & Mary with a B.A. in Theater and Speech. He didn’t know what to do for a living, having little real theatrical talent, so he attended what he calls the “great catch-basin of unfocused over-achievers”: law school. In 1980, he received his Juris Doctorate at William and Mary. Robbins practiced environmental law in Columbia, S.C. for a year to the day (his father demanded back the money for law school if David practiced less than one year – he quit two weeks before the anniversary but got Sam to agree that vacation time could be included) before turning his energy to a career as a freelance writer in 1981. He began writing fiction in 1997 and has since published fourteen novels, has made repeated visits to the NY Times bestsellers list, and has had several of his works optioned for film. David is a successful playwright; his works include Scorched Earth, an adaptation of his novel of the same name; Sam & Carol, a two person tour de force about his parents; and an adaptation of his novel The End of War. David has taught advanced creative writing at the university level for over a decade, currently at VCU’s Honors College. He is the co-founder of James River Writers, a non-profit helping aspiring writers work and learn together as a writing community; co-founder of the Podium Foundation, which supports the practice of writing for Richmond city youth; and he is the creator of The Mighty Pen Project, giving Virginia veterans and their families training to turn their memories of military service into written, archived narratives.
David is currently at work on an epic novel set in Palestine during the tumultuous