John P. Davidson was born and raised in Fredericksburg, a small ranching community in the Texas Hill Country. He studied economics and history at the University of Texas at Austin, then joined the Peace Corps, serving as a volunteer in Peru where he worked with agricultural co-ops in the desert south of Lima. Following the Peace Corps, he earned a master’s degree at the University of Texas while teaching in a community literacy program.
He began writing at Texas Monthly magazine, where one of his early assignments was to follow Mexican workers crossing the Rio Grande to find jobs in Texas. He made the trip twice with two brothers and in 1980 published The Long Road North (Doubleday). He has held senior editorial positions at Texas Monthly, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Vanity Fair. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to GQ, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Harper’s, Elle, Preservation, and Mirabella. He received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Dobie Paisano Fellowship, and the Penney-Missouri Prize for Excellence in Journalism. He taught English at the Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico, and has been a guest lecturer at the University of the Americas in Cholula, Mexico. He travels frequently in Latin America and lives in Austin, Texas.