Tom Robbins (born July 22, 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina) is an American author. His novels are complex, often wild stories with strong social undercurrents and obscure but well-researched details. His novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) was made into a movie in 1993 directed by Gus Van Sant, starring Uma Thurman and featuring a soundtrack by singer k.d. lang. In 1954, Robbins attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia to study journalism, but left due to discipline problems. He then moved to New York to become a poet. Later, under the threat of the Army draft, he enlisted in the Air Force. After serving for three years in Korea, he left the Air Force, and returned to civilian life in Richmond, Virginia in 1960. There, he entered art school at Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), which later became Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). There he studied art, and was the editor of the campus newspaper as well as a copy editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Upon graduation, he moved to Seattle to seek a Masters degree at the School of Far Eastern Studies of the University of Washington. While in Seattle, he worked for The Seattle Times.
Robbins moved to LaConner, Washington in 1970, and has lived there ever since. He won the Golden Umbrella award at the Bumbershoot Seattle arts festival in 1997.
He was a personal friend of Terence McKenna, whose influence is evident in several of his books. A main character (Larry Diamond) in Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas advocates a theory similar to those of McKenna, involving Psilocybin.
He is referenced in a newspaper article from the video game Deus Ex.
