Jim Metzner is best known as the producer of the award-winning Pulse of the Planet radio series and podcast and for his soundscape recordings from around the world. Sacred Mounds is his first novel. He is currently working on a nonfiction book project.

After studying acting at Yale Drama School, he enjoyed a brief career as a singer-songwriter in London. He has been producing sound-rich audio programs since 1977. Pulse of the Planet has been on the air since 1988. For many years, Jim produced features and commentaries for All Things Considered, Marketplace, Weekend Edition and other public radio programs. He has received major grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Grammy Foundation.

Stories about Jim's work have appeared in Audio Magazine (cover story), the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, the Today Show and the CBS Evening News. His forty-year archive of sounds is now reposited in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. A beekeeper and avid fly-fisherman, Jim resides in New York's Hudson River Valley with his wife Eileen.