Ron Suresha grew up in and around Detroit. He began his vocation as editor and writer early in life: he edited his Cub Scout troop newsletter and, ten years later, edited both his high school newspaper and literary magazine. After studying creative writing and journalism at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, he became a vegetarian, edited several alternative periodicals, ran a community switchboard, went to India twice, and lived in yoga meditation ashrams around the country for about ten years.

He has contributed freelance editorial work to scores of book projects at Shambhala Publications and other book publishers specializing in Eastern studies, philosophy, and psychology. He served for five years as a board director of The Gay & Lesbian Review and is currently a contributing writer for American Bear magazine. His writing has appeared as well in Art & Understanding, Lambda Book Report, Gay Community News, White Crane Journal, Southern Voice, In Newsweekly, and Darshan, and the anthologies The Bear Book, Bear Book 2, Tales from the Bear Cult, My First Time 2, Quickies 2, and Bar Stories.

In 1998 he self-published a recipé chapbook, Mugs o Joy: Delightful Hot Drinkables. Bears on Bears is his first commercially published book, to be followed shortly by Bearotica, an anthology of Bear-themed erotic fiction that Ron edited (also by Alyson Publications).

Ron has been involved with Bear communities since the late '80s, when he lived in San Francisco with one of the creators of Bear magazine, and created signs, graphics, and promotions for the Lone Star Saloon. Since leaving the San Francisco Bay area in 1993, he has been a member of the Chesapeake Bay Bears, Motor City Bears, New England Bears, and Rhode Island Grizzlies. He acted as a judge for the International Mr. Bear 2000 contest in San Francisco.

Ron is fluent in ASL (American Sign Language), enjoys gender-role-free folk and international dancing, and calligraphy. He has been a meditator and vegetarian more than half his life. He is single, and lives by the verdant Emerald Necklace of Boston.

Photo: Eric "Bucky" Chappell