Biography of John Sanford

John Sanford, the name he writes under, is actually the author John Roswell Camp. John was born on February 23, 1944 in Cedar Rapids Iowa. John is also a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist besides being an novelist.

After John completed his high school career at Washington High School in the year of 1962, he then went on to attend the University of Iowa, and after four years spent there, he earned his bachelor's degree in American Studies in 1966. During that very same year, he became married to Susan Lee Jones. John joined the army after getting married in 1966 and remained in the army until 1968. He did work as a reporter for some time, and then decided it was time to pick up more education. He enrolled again, back to University of Iowa, and this time he attained a masters degree in journalism in 1971.

John became a reporter for the Miami Herald for quite some time, starting in the year of 1971 and on through the year of 1978. After that period, he continued with another reporter job for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press which lasted from 1978 until 1990. John was always a natural writer and he won a Pulitzer Prize because of a series of stories he had written which pertained to a farm crisis taking place with a family that resided in Minnesota at the time. After the year of 1990, John became a novelist full-time.

John always had an interest in becoming a writer ever since he was in the earlier grades in elementary school. When John was back in his high school years, a teacher tried to encourage him with his writing and thought that John would make a good writer.

John began writing right about the year 1990, and he started to submit his manuscripts to various publishers that were rejected. He actually wrote two different books, one of which was The Wheel Key Number, and the other, The Chippewa Zoo. No publisher ever liked these first two books of John's, and therefore, they never have been out on the shelves. His third attempt at a novel was "The Fool's Run." This was the novel where John was lucky, and it became published. The Fool's Run, is part of his Kidd series, but I think what he most well known for is his "Prey Series," the first book being" Rules of Prey". Another series written by John Sandford as he is known, is "The Virgil Flower Series." His books are very worthwhile to read and I highly recommend them.