Robert N. Lawson was born September 7, 1928 (the year of the dragon) in Woodstock, Illinois. He lived for ten years in Northern Illinois (until his mother died), then ten years in Southern California, with his father. He was married to Naomi Wade on October 6, 1950, in Eugene, Oregon. He flew 27 combat missions as a navigator on a B-29 crew during the Korean War (about a third as lead navigator), then enrolled (on the GI Bill) at the University of Kansas where, over the years, he earned four degrees:

B.A. in Philosophy, 1956
M.A. in English, 1961
Thesis: Hawthorne's Use of the Supernatural in The Scarlet Letter
Ph.D. in English, 1966
Dissertation: Compositor C of the Shakespeare First Folio
M.A. in Oriental Studies, 1985
Thesis: Four Plays by Betsuyaku Minoru
(translations with an introduction)

He is a retired Professor of English at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where he taught for over thirty years, his specialties the Shakespeare course and courses in Japanese Literature (with a lot of Freshman Composition in between), and served as General Editor of The Woodley Press from 1980 to 2000.

The year 2000 (the Grand Year of the Dragon) was a very good year. He began the self-serialization of his novel, The Bridge of Dreams, on the internet <http://www.washburn.edu/reference/bridge24>, the Woodley Press published five books (the most for any one year--each with a different editor) before his retirement as General Editor, and he and his wife celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary.