After three decades as an English professor at Idaho State University (during which she was honored as university distinguished teacher, researcher, and public servant), Susan Swetnam retired to a second-act career as a licensed massage therapist. She specializes in work with hospice patients, with the elderly, with cancer survivors, and with caregivers and the bereaved. She is the author of nine books and has published many articles and essays in national magazines ( Gourmet, Mademoiselle ), academic journals, regional magazines, and little/literary magazines. Widow of poet Ford Swetnam, she lives in southeastern Idaho, where she is a member of Holy Spirit Parish.