Robert Gleason was born in Michigan City, Indiana. He has an AB in English literature from Indiana University, a master’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and he attended the Sorbonne, all of which were financed by seven hellish years in the Gary steel mills. He has worked in New York book publishing as an acquisitions editor pretty much forever. When he began, he says, he and his colleagues "chiseled books on the walls of caves." He lives in New York City