Ron J. Suresha is an editor, anthologist, and creative nonfiction writer. He is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, and is considered an authority on emergent queer masculinities, focusing on the subcultures of gay and bisexual male Bears and of male bisexuality.
Suresha, who was named Bear of the Year 2008 by TheCompleteBear.com, authored the groundbreaking queer men’s studies book, Bears on Bears: Interviews and Discussions, which includes personal interviews with comedian Bruce Vilanch and “Survivor” Richard Hatch. The book was acclaimed by the Village Voice as “required reading for anyone interested in gender studies,” and a 2009 revised edition with 5 new interviews was issued by Bears Bones Books.
Suresha is the senior editor, with Pete Chvany, Ph.D, of Bi Men: Coming Out copublished as a double issue of the Journal of Bisexuality (5: 2/3), and solo editor of the 2006 fiction anthology Bi Guys: Firsthand Fiction, both named Finalists for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award in bisexual literature.
Suresha edited another special issue for the Journal of Bisexuality (Haworth/Taylor & Francis Journals) on Bisexual Perspectives on the Life and Work of Alfred C. Kinsey. This work, which commemorated the sexagennial (60th) anniversary of the publication of the Kinsey Report, was a Finalist for the 2008 Lambda Literary Award in bisexual literature, and was released by Routledge as a special hardbound trade/library edition in 2009.
Suresha has been interviewed about bisexual politics for KPFA Pacifica Radio and about bear subculture and male bisexuality for Sirius Radio OutQ and numerous GLBTIQA (Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Intersex Queer Questioning and Allies) newspapers, as well as The Daily Beast and Village Voice. He has contributed to many GLBTIQA periodicals, including Advocate.com, Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide, Lambda Book Report, White Crane Journal, and RFD, and anthologies, including the 2004 Lambda Literary Award-winning anthology, I Do/I Don’t: Queers on Marriage. Suresha participates and presents at GLBTIQ conferences and classes on aspects of his work in contemporary queer masculinities.
In 2010, Suresha published his tenth work, The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin: Stories, Jests, and Donkey Tales of the Beloved Persian Folk Hero, which was named a Storytelling World Honor Book.
In 2012, Suresha co-authored with Scott McGillivray an illustrated coffeetable art book, Fur: The Love of Hair, by German publisher Bruno Gmünder. The book was named a Rainbow Award Winner in nonfiction.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Suresha attended the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor 1976-8) where he studied creative writing, and Vista College (Berkeley, Cal., 1989-92), where he studied American Sign Language. For more than two decades, he worked as a typographer and freelance proofreader for trade book publishers such as Shambhala Publications and Gay Sunshine Press. He was married in October 2004 to Dr Rocco Russo, in Provincetown, Mass., and the following year they received a Connecticut civil union, which four years later became a civil marriage. They currently live in the hills of Western Connecticut.
Since 1977, Suresha has been an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. He serves his community as a licensed Justice of the Peace registered with the Green Party. He is a Libra/Leo/Leo, a Jew, a vegetarian, a cancer survivor, and a bisexuality advocate.
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