Jon Thiem is professor emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at Colorado State University. He has lived in Colorado for the last 35 years. Retired from teaching, he spends time writing, reading, and traveling. He also likes to hike and ski in the Colorado mountains. After growing up in rural southern Delaware, he went to college in Pennsylvania, where he graduated from Dickinson College (Political Science, 1968). As an undergraduate, he spent a junior year abroad studying International Relations in Italy. He then taught for two years as a Peace Corps English teacher in Ghana, West Africa (where he was known as 'Kofi'). It was through his Peace Corps service that he discovered his vocation as a teacher, translator, and scholar of literature. Thiem's most recent book is Letters from Ghana 1968-1970 (2013). On his return from Africa, he earned a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Indiana University. His other books include Lorenzo de' Medici: Selected Poems and Prose (1991), short-listed for the Columbia Translation Center Prize; and Real Life: Ten Stories of Aging (1994), an anthology of world fiction he edited with philosopher Patrick McKee. With Ralph Slotten and Bettie Anne Doebler, he has published two volumes of poetry: Book of the Mermaid (2001), and Nine Waves (2003). Rabbit Creek Country: Three Ranching Lives in the Heart of the Mountain West (2008) was written in collaboration with his research assistant Deborah Dimon. The book examines the lives of three early twentieth-century settlers in the Northern Colorado mountains and their intimate relation to the land. Rabbit Creek was a Finalist for the Colorado Book Award in 2009.