[6] Robbins attended Warsaw High School (class of 1949) and Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, where he won the Senior Essay Medal.

He was discharged in 1957 and returned to Richmond, Virginia, where his poetry readings at the Rhinoceros Coffee House led to his gaining a reputation on the local bohemian scene.

[8] In late 1957, Robbins enrolled at Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), a school of art, drama, and music, which later became Virginia Commonwealth University.

In 1970, Robbins moved to La Conner, Washington, and it was at his home on Second Street that he subsequently authored nine books (although, in the late 1990s, he spent two years living on the Swinomish Indian reservation).

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Robbins regularly published articles and essays in Esquire magazine,[18][19][20] and also contributed to Playboy, The New York Times,[21] and GQ.

He took the process of conception, research, trial and error, moving things around, changing voices and pitch very seriously, wrote slowly and carefully, revised constantly, developing, refining and evolving this novel over the course of about two years.

Now, it's common knowledge that cops are congenital liars, and evangelists spend their lives telling fantastic tales in such a way as to convince otherwise rational people that they're factual.

[25]Over the course of his writing career, Robbins delivered readings on four continents, in addition to performances he gave at festivals from Seattle to San Miguel de Allende.

[32] On September 2, 2023, a "King for a Day" gala and parade was held in Robbins's honor in his hometown of La Conner, Washington.

[38] Robbins spent three weeks at ceremonial sites in Mexico and Central America with mythologist Joseph Campbell, and studied mythology in Greece and Sicily with the poet Robert Bly.

[16] Robbins was a member of the Marijuana Policy Project's advisory board, alongside numerous other notable figures such as Jack Black, Ani DiFranco, Tommy Chong, and Jello Biafra;[39] he was honoured at the Laureate Dinner of Seattle's Rainier Club that has also recognized other local figures, such as Charles Johnson, Stephen Wadsworth, Timothy Egan and August Wilson;[40] and he sat on the board of directors of The Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas (formerly 826 Seattle), "a nonprofit writing and tutoring center dedicated to helping youth, ages six to 18, improve their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

[43] The novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was adapted into a film in 1993 by Gus Van Sant, starring Uma Thurman, Lorraine Bracco, and Keanu Reeves.

[45] A main character (Larry Diamond) in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas advocates a theory similar to those of McKenna, involving the history and cultural influences of psychedelic plants.

He wrote numerous short stories and essays, mostly collected in the volume Wild Ducks Flying Backward, and one novella, B Is for Beer.