About The Author

I've lived in some interesting places, starting with New York City….

When I was five my father joined the Foreign Service of the State Department. His job took us to Washington, DC, Mexico, South Vietnam, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Uruguay and Nicaragua. We lived in Saigon during the Tonkin Gulf Incident, the overthrow of Diem, a number of other coup d'etats and almost daily Vietcong terrorist attacks against Americans. We survived three years gasping for air at 13,000 feet in La Paz, Bolivia during the time that Che Guevarra was trying to build a guerrilla base in that country. In 1980 I was in Nicaragua debating politics with guys like Tomas Borge and the Ortega brothers and witnessing the first days of the Sandinista Revolution (the subject of the non-fiction book At the Fall of Somoza, which I wrote with my father).

So, yes, I have some stories to tell. After college I worked as a freelance journalist and for the National Endowment for the Arts. And when I moved back to New York City, I started writing plays. By the middle of the wild '80s I had became part of the downtown avant-garde theater scene working at such places as La Mama, Theater for the New City, Here and the Public Theater. Since then, fourteen of my plays have had their premieres in Manhattan.

In 1986 two movie producers attended an Off Broadway play of mine called The Education of One Miss February (a farce about the rise to fame of a Playboy bunny), optioned it for the movies and commissioned me to write a screenplay. That got me started writing for TV and film. I've also worked as a copywriter, speechwriter, published poems in literary anthologies and written an eight-part radio series called The Swamp Fox for National Public Radio and the BBC. (And I've been a bartender, actor, rock guitarist/singer, cruise planner, construction worker, labor foreman, baseball player, soccer coach, short order cook, writing teacher and ghost writer.)

I had written just about everything, except for a mystery novel. But that changed with Eve Missing published in October 2003. At the close of that year, I moved to Los Angeles to jump into the film world. It's been interesting so far working with people like Oliver Stone, Antoine Fuqua, Dennis Quaid, etc. Equally fascinating has been my work (book and film) with former CIA undercover operative Gary Berntsen (Jawbreaker, The Walk-In) and Steve Hodel. I keep learning. Isn't that what it's all about?

Awards/Grants:

• Douglas Dillon Award, The American Academy of Diplomacy, Plunging Into Haiti
• Center International Theatre Festival, Best Play - Wilderness of Mirrors
• Kesselring Committee Award, Best Play - The Tail of the Tiger
• National Endowment for the Humanities Grant - The Swamp Fox
• Mellon Foundation Grant - The Swamp Fox
• Peabody Award Nomination - The Swamp Fox
• Jerome Foundation Playwriting Fellowships - Wilderness of Mirrors, Hide Mother in My Heart, Gauguin's Parrot, Spain, Okeechobee Split
• Writer's Guild East Foundation Fellowship - An Unacceptable Person
• New York Independent Film Festival, Best Screenplay - Flashback (with Stephen Fife)
• Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati New Play Festival, Finalist, Best Play - Walk in My Soul
• Beverly Hills Best Play Contest, Finalist - Asylum
• Rocky Mountain One-Act Play Festival, Best Play - Bullfight
• Bellwether Prize for Fiction, Finalist - The Testimony of Miguel

Affiliations:
The Dramatists Guild
Authors League of America
Mystery Writers of America
Writers Guild of America
Thriller Writers International
PEN USA, Membership Committee
Private Eye Writers of America
International Association of Crime Writers
Who's Who in America, 2001-4
Who's Who in the World 2001-4
Independent Film Professionals
Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Art Students League, NYC