Thomas A. Barron was born on March 26, 1952; he grew up on a ranch in Colorado. From an early age, he was drawn both to writing and to a close connection with nature. In grade school, he created a magazine, The Idiot's Odyssey. He was an Eagle Scout, and his achievement in a Scout essay contest won him a trip to Washington, D.C., to meet the President. Barron graduated from Princeton University, where he won the Pyne Prize for service to the university.

His life as a young man was full of adventures and accomplishments. He went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar; while there he wrote his first novel. Afterwards he backpacked through Asia and Africa, ran the Boston Marathon, and became president of a venture capital firm, building new businesses. But in 1989 he resigned from his management duties and moved back...