John Phillip Santos was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1957. Growing up, he lived in a predominately middle-class white suburb where he spent much of his time with his grandmother and aunts, listening to them tell stories about everything from Pancho Villa and the revolution to tales of his own family history. He attended college at Notre Dame, receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and literature. Santos went on to receive his master’s degree at The University of Oxford. He won the American Academy of Poets Prize at Notre Dame and is the first Mexican-American Rhodes Scholar. In addition to writing, Santos has produced more than forty television documentaries for CBS and PBS, two of which received Emmy nominations. Santos recently moved back to his hometown of San Antonio Texas where is he is working on a new novel entitled The Farthest Home is in an Empire of Fire.