Concerning Everything That Can Be Known and Certain Other Things As Well

Ron Gillette was born in 1944. He spent most of his career as the editor of several trade magazines and, in that capacity, wrote and reported hundreds of articles on business topics. Once retired, his creative life saw him first as a poet. He's had several dozen poems published in the little magazines and, in 1984, a collection of his poems, "Hardware and Variety," was published by Erie Street Press. In the eighties and nineties, he turned from the printed page to performance poetry and was an early collaborator with the Poetry Slam's founder, Marc Kelly Smith. Much to his surprise, in 2018, short stories began to appear and, since then, they've become his only writing. As he imagines is true of all stories, his contain a lot of fictionalized autobiography in a stew of knowable and unknowable ingredients. The carrots and potatoes in it are the people who have played roles in his life. Gillette is a widower with two adult children, Meghan Lane and Jason Gillette, and four grandchildren. He lived the first half of his life in Chicago and currently lives in New Berlin, WI.