Born in Chicago in 1940 and raised in the western suburb of Maywood, Ron Landa attended several universities, eventually earning a Ph. D. in history from Georgetown University. For nearly 40 years he worked as a historian for the U.S. Department of State, where he edited volumes in the documentary series, Foreign Relations of the United States, and for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he co-authored The McNamara Ascendancy, 1961-1965. He has taught at College Misericordia and George Washington University. His first collection of poems, Drops in a Bucket, was published in 2011.