David Robbins

David L. Robbins was born in Richmond, Virginia. In 1976, he graduated from the College of William & Mary with a B.A. in Theater and Speech. He returned for law school in 1980, but worked as an attorney for only one year before focusing on a career as a writer. Since 1997, he’s published sixteen novels, made repeated visits to the NY Times bestsellers list, has had several of his works optioned for film, and has had four stage plays professionally produced. Also, David has taught advanced creative writing at the university level for fifteen years and is a frequent lecturer on the topic of the artful narrative. He founded James River Writers, a non-profit helping aspiring writers work and learn together as a writing community; co-founded the Podium Foundation, supporting writing and communication for underserved communities of youth; founded The Mighty Pen Project, giving Virginia military veterans and their families training and community to turn their memories of military service into written, archived narratives. The Mighty Pen produces an annual short-story journal, a one-act play festival, and a podcast. In addition, David has founded Frontline Writers, a writing program for Richmond area first responders, including police, fire, and emergency medical personnel. He also has founded The Pedestal Fund, a scholarship granting non-profit to support and benefit worthy youth in Central Virginia to continue their education and trade training. David continues to teach advanced creative writing at Virginia Commonwealth University in the nationally top-ranked School of the Arts. In 2018, he was named one of the two Most Outstanding Literary Artists in Virginia for the Past Fifty Years by the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Two of his latest novels are Isaac’s Beacon, set during the creation of the state of Israel, and the sequel, The Shortest Road, which invokes the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 and the Palestinian nakba, or diaspora, out of the contested lands of Palestine. His most recent work is a murder-mystery thriller romance, The Trans-Mongolian Express, set on the famous 7,000 mile-long railway journey between Peking and Moscow during the Chernobyl disaster. He is currently at work on a novel about the Great Flood in the time of Noah.