Rita Robinson

Rita Robinson has lived in California since age five, a transplant from Ohio. She grew up in Central Los Angeles and now lives in Palm Desert California and part-time in a Southern California mountain community. Her reading habits, like her writing choices, prove eclectic with favorite fiction and nonfiction books spanning the classics to Robert M. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," and "Caste: The Origins of our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson. She was a newspaper hound from about age six, and eventually worked as a fulltime reporter for several years before turning to freelance writing fulltime. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, mostly derived from curiosity and partly to answer her own questions about life.

A quote from Walker Evans given in 1933 at the first one-man photographic exhibition by the new Museum of Modern Art speaks of a writer's life. "Stare, pry, listen, and eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long."

In addition to 11 traditionally published books, she has edited and provided photographs and graphics for New Page Books, (The Benham Book of Palmistry); and for Rockefeller Publishing (The Naturalist Collector). Robinson’s current work is “Tell it Now: Why Take it to the Grave?” i.

Robinson’s work includes approximately 1,500 published magazine articles in magazines such as Westways, Los Angeles Magazine, Men’s Fitness, Reader’s Digest, Cosmopolitan, First for Women, Pro-Trucker, Playgirl, The Acorn, Let’s Live, Health Magazine, Trip & Tour, Kiwanis, and Parenting Magazine to name a few. Some of her photo work is included in three of her books, and several magazine articles.

She has also conducted writing extension classes and workshops at seven community colleges, taught and lectured at several conferences, including the Maui Writer’s Retreat, She also worked s a private writing coach and editor, and instructor for Writer's Digest for more than 20 years. She graduated from Valley College, San Bernardino, California with an AA, and has attended Cal State University, San Bernardino.

Robinson lives with her husband, Andy Campbell in Palm Desert. She has three children, five grandsons, and seven great-grandchildren from a former marriage.