I Had Been Writing Professionally Since 1988

Since Signing With Universal, I Have Been Working Closely With Gary Ross, The Director, Producer And Screenwriter. We Have Spent Many Hours On The Phone, And I've Been Sending Him Information And Items That Have Been Useful To The Writing Process.

For Me, Being A Writer Was Never A Choice. I Was Born One. All Through My Childhood I Wrote Short Stories And Stuffed Them In Drawers. I Wrote On Everything. I Didn't Do My Homework So I Could Write

Without Dignity, Identity Is Erased. In Its Absence, Men Are Defined Not By Themselves, But By Their Captors And The Circumstances In Which They Are Forced To Live.

I Think If I Had Been Writing Fiction, Where The Work Is Entirely Dependent On The Writer's Creativity And The Potential Directions The Narrative Might Take Are Infinite, I Might Have Frozen

Such Beauty, He Thought, Was Too Perfect To Have Come About By Mere Chance. That Day In The Center Of The Pacific Was, To Him, A Gift Crafted Deliberately, Compassionately, For Him And Phil. Joyful And Grateful In The Midst Of Slow Dying, The Two Men Bathed In That Day Until Sunset Brought Is, And Their Time In The Doldrums, To An End.