Ron Gibson

Featured author for March 2001.

Writing interests: Flash Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Experimental, Personal Essays, Familial Subject Matter

I.D. Theory articles: "Hailstorm of Dynamite", "Blackout, or Return to the Ole West"

Links: "Memento Mori" | "Pirouette" | "Agraphia . . ."

Born in Seattle, 1974 — a Gemini, paranoid of the prospect of running into his female twin.

Raised fifteen miles South of Seattle, in Kent, Washington. I'm a valley kid. — Now, that doesn't mean I smack bubblegum, bouncily lean my head to the side, and mutter "Gag me with a stale Dorrito." — Kent valley is the bluecollar backwood wilds of Washington (or used to be.) I was a river rat. I spent most of my time wandering down the backroads of the Green River, fishing for salmon, steelhead, cutthroat (depended on the season), and just for the sake of exploration. Even though those same backroads became notorious for being the Green River Killer's dumping grounds, I persisted and would meet up with all sorts of weird characters; odd men that lived out of their car; whinos fishing with fishing line wrapped around a broken-off car antenna; old men reminescing about getting knocked out by the kick of their first shotgun as a lad, etc. etc. The same weird characters that, even though I only met them for a moment, haunt me. — And in a few words, that is also my writing. A purging of faces and sites I've witnessed, gathered up, and slightly twist, blending with art. As was the case of my first writing exposure, from my fourth grade teacher, Arthur Martin. He would ask the class to write a story a week, and I would often write about the river. We were in kindred spirits in that regard. He grew up a river rat along the Cedar River and would tell me his stories of shooting and skinning rabbits for money, and I would tell him about my adventures along the Green River on the weekends — ie, throwing an M-80 into a school of salmon. In his class, it was where I first learned the power of words. When he would ask me to print out my story on acetate so he could put it on the projector to show the entire class.

But, somewhere between an obsession with sports and girls, I drifted away from writing, and didn't meet up with it again until ninth grade. I was doing miserably in an English class and the teacher had been telling us for months that we could gain extra credit if we wrote, edited, polished, and polished again, a story for the district writing competition. Of course, I waited until the night before, wrote at a blistering pace, unedited, and handed it in the next day. My teacher was angry, but months later, while at an assembly, I was more than surprised to hear my name called and handed award for my last second hurrah.

But, after the award surprise wore off, I went back to my old ways. My friends and I were like a pack of a barbarians, going from neighborhood to neighborhood, in search of the best competition we could find in the arena of street basketball. Hours a day, on into the night, my life consisted of swats, dimes, J's, dishes, alley oops, cross-over dribbles, behind-the-back passes. And even though high school coaches would insist I play football, etc, I refused. There was some sort of gritty pride of playing outside the system. (And I suppose that's why this bio is difficult to write: How to conveniently wrap up how unconventionally I got here.)

During high school, I took two years of creative writing, even though I put in zero effort. The main reason I took the class was because my teacher, Tom Brush, was so nonconformist, that he would allow us to roam free after we checked in for class. But the odd thing is, I kept all his dittoes and printouts. After high school was finished and done with, when I was around nineteen or twenty, I looked back to them. And I began to read voraciously. First Salinger, then Eugene O'Neill, then John Millington Synge, then Jean Toomer, then Ring Lardner, Capote, Hemingway, Kerouac, Wolfe, Nabokov, etc. etc. I didn't mind reading or writing anymore, because it wasn't a chore, an assignment at school. So, I've never walked down the hallowed halls of academia. My education is from the musty shelves of thrift stores, garage sales, used bookstore bins, and the various people and sights of this valley.

My first story was published a little after my personal renaissance. And from then on, with the exception of a two year hiatus, I've been published sporadically in print and online.

I would like to thank certain people that have been influental or helpful at different times in my writing life: First of all, my family. Arthur Martin. Tom Brush. Regina Williams. Tameko Barnette. Mary Swift. Barbara Morgan. Erin Elizabeth. Susan Smith Nash. Janet Buck. Barbara Benepe. Isabelle Carruthers. Tony Cochran. Marlow Peerse Weaver. Claudine Moreau. Joanna Hooste. Miss Pink, idea woman and sister in absurdity. Kelley Beeson, who challenged and changed my way of thinking and writing numinous ways. And I'm sure a sleugh of others that for some reason are not coming to mind. Excuse my alzheimers.

Contemporary author influences: Tobias Wolff, Anne Fleming, William T. Vollmann, Mitch Cullin, Mark Richard, Diana Hume George, Daniel MacIvor, Chuck Palahniuk, Susan Smith Nash, Janet Buck, William Gibson, Kurt Zapata, Brandon Freels, Pam Houston, Sharon Olds, etc.

Miscellaneous: Victor Newman, Curling, Grendel, Cheesy Potatoes, English Premier League, Rejection Row, Beatles, Dandy Warhols, Pi, Krazy Kat & Ignatz, Joe Matt, Beverly Cleary, Jesus Christ, Duffy's Tavern, Pez, Pearl Jam, Pete Droge, Baths, Lightning Storms, Richard Hugo, Smirks, Crispin Glover, Hyde, Chopper, The English Mimes, The Fran Connelly Show, Mr. Sticks, JP Patches & Gertrude, The Land of the Lost, Chongo, The Recovery, ad infinitum . . .

Quote: "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book." Malcolm X.