Robert Briggs was born in Omaha, Nebraska, attended Auburn and Columbia Universities, and served in the Army during the Korean War. In the 1950s he was a bookseller in Greenwich Village and North Beach where he was involved in jazz and poetry scenes.

In 1972 he founded Robert Briggs Associates, a loose-knit group of West Coast publishing consultants. The association was involved in a variety of nonfiction which included Rolling Thunder: An Exploration into the Powers of an American Indian Medicine Man by Doug Boyd, Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer, Kenneth Pelletier's classic book on stress, as well as works by Joseph Campbell, Colin Wilson, and Theodore Roszak.

A member of the Zen Community of Oregon, he’s the author of The American Emergency: A Search for Spiritual Renewal in an Age of Materialism, 1989, and Ruined Time, The 1950s and the Beat, 2006.

Books
Ruined Time: The 1950s and the Beat. Portland, OR. RBA, 2005.
The Power of Aging: Final Patterns. Work in Progress, 2001.
The American Emergency, A Search for Spiritual Renewal in an Age of Materialism. Berkeley, CA. Celestial Arts, 1989.

CDs
My Own Atom Bomb. Indigo Grove Recording. Portland, OR. 2006.
Someone Said No. CD in Progress, 2003.
Zen and the Kerouac Curse. CD in Progress, 2003.
Poetry and the 1950s: Homage to the Beat Generation. Portland, Or. Chel White Films CD, 1999.

Video
"The Beats, Bomb, and the 21st Century." Portland, OR. Chel White Films, 1999.

Stories
"How the Cat World Got Its Pagan." San Francisco. Nexus September, 1963.
"Confessions of a San Francisco Snowman." Menlo Park, CA, Ramparts, May 1962.

Poetry
“Wood Tuesday," San Francisco, Nexus December, 1963.
"Off Tom Eliot, Recently From St Louis." San Francisco. Nexus July, 1963.
"Grand Tiny Time." San Francisco. Beatitudes #16, 1960.
"The Patriot's Dot." San Francisco. Beatitudes #3, 1959.
"I Don't Want to Learn a Foreign Language." San Francisco The Underhound, 1959.
"After contemplation." San Francisco. Beatitudes #2, 1958.
"Prayer for Somebody." San Francisco. The Underhound, 1958.
"Redemption," Auburn, AL. The Auburn Review. 1950.
"Sam Misery." Auburn, AL. The Auburn Review, 1949.

Articles
“The Fifties Was a Deceptive Decade.” Warwickshire, England. Beat Scene No 39, 2001.
"A New Basis for Moral Life.” Wheaton, IL.
"Voices on the Threshold of Tomorrow. Quest Books, 1993.
"The Convention and Conventions, Stains on a Political Umbrella.” San Francisco, Nexus, Fall 1963.