Drake graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors) and Latin. His studies at Duke University School of Law were interrupted for two years when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry (the Black Horse Regiment) in Vietnam and Cambodia.[1][2] After the war, from 1972 to 1980 he worked as the assistant town attorney in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.[3] In 1981 he transitioned to full-time writing of science fiction literature.[3] With Karl Edward Wagner and Jim Groce, he was one of the initiators of Carcosa, a small press company. He lived in Pittsboro, North Carolina.
On November 17, 2021 he announced he was retiring from writing novels, due to unspecified cognitive health problems.[4] Drake died on December 10, 2023, at the age of 78.