Biography
Robbins was raised in Pennsylvania. Until he was eight he lived in an outlying area of Philadelphia. Then his father was shot, and Robbins spent much of his remaining childhood and teen years on a farm owned by an Old Mennonite great aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania Dutch country. They had no indoor plumbing. Water was brought in from an outdoor pump, and they used an outhouse. The farm had forty cows, horses, hogs and chickens. When his uncle was nearly blinded by an owl that got into the milkhouse, Robbins did much of the plowing, planting and harvesting.
An avid backwoodsman, he hunted and fished extensively. Later in life he took part in search and rescue, and taught wilderness survival.
At seventeen Robbins enlisted in the United States Air Force and became a sergeant. After his honorable discharge he attended college and went into broadcasting. He worked as an announcer and engineer and later as a program director at various radio stations. Later still he entered law enforcement and then took to writing full-time.
At one time or another Robbins has lived in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, Montana, Colorado, Nebraska and the Pacific Northwest. He spent a year and a half in Europe, traveling through France, Italy, Greece and Germany. He lived for more than a year in Turkey.
His writing has been critically praised by the Pulp Rack, among others. He is perhaps best known for two current long-running series.
- Wilderness is the generational saga of a mountain man and his Shoshone wife. Started in 1990 and written under his David Thompson pen name, the series has over sixty books to date and is being published four times a year.
- Endworld is a science fiction series under his own name started in 1986. There are forty-one books and is still being published.
His work has been published in nine languages.
Read more about this topic: David L. Robbins (Oregon Writer)
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“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)