T.A. Barron grew up on a ranch north of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He attended Princeton University, where he completed the Teacher Certification program and served as class president before receiving his B.A. in History in 1974. Following his undergraduate degree, Barron became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. During this experience, Barron began traveling the world and backpacked extensively in the Highlands of Scotland - as well as Asia, Africa, and the Arctic. After eight years of working on Wall Street, Barron returned to Colorado in 1990 to pursue writing full time.

T.A. Barron has published more than 20 books, including the international best seller The Lost Years of Merlin (a five-book saga), The Hero's Trail (a nonfiction book profiling heroic young people), and The Great Tree of Avalon (a New York Times best seller trilogy). In addition, he has written several illustrated children's books and nature books about Colorado wilderness (a great excuse to go hiking).

In addition to his successful writing career, T.A. Barron founded a national award for heroic young people, which he named after his mother: the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. Each year, the Barron Prize honors extraordinary, public-spirited young people from all backgrounds, in the hope that their examples will inspire others.