He is professor emeritus of English and the former director of the creative writing program at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
He graduated from Phillips Academy Andover (1949) and Columbia University (cum laude, 1953), where Mark Van Doren and George Nobbe encouraged him to pursue a career in writing.
He served on active duty in the United States Navy Reserve from 1953 to 1956 in the final days of the Korean War, ultimately attaining the rank of lieutenant.
Robinson joined the New Paltz faculty in 1964 and remained there (spending the academic year of 1971–1972 teaching at the University of Paris at Vincennes) until his retirement in 2000.
He then turned his attention to the moral issues of contemporary society in The Easy Way, praised for its "insights into the legal profession" (Buffalo), Home Again, Home Again, which drew on his experience in the Maverick Artists Colony, "for which the author has a visible attachment" (Levin), and The Whole Truth, "an attention-grabber that will not let go until the last words have been read" (Times-Herald).