I actually started out in theater. I was writing small, one-act plays in
high school, which got performed around campus for classes by a kind of
traveling troupe put together by some of the teachers when they discovered,
kinda startled, that I could write. First commissioned work was a full-length
comic play I wrote at the request of the school which was performed in front
of a full assembly. (Prior to then noboby noticed I existed. Suddenly I was
noticed.)

My last year of high school, I started sending out one-act and full
length plays to various theaters. One local theater decided to produce one of
them, and sent a letter suggesting a meeting. I went to it, and they kept
waiting for my dad to show up or something; finally I was able to convince
them that no, I really *was* the person who wrote the play. (And they did do
it.) When I made it to Southwestern College in Chula Vista (after a quick run-
around at schools in Chicago and Dallas), at age 18, I wrote a bunch of one-
acts for the college, and was commissioned to write another full-length play
which was performed for 20 some weeks in summer stock, and later published in
book form by a leading play publisher (and no, I'm not telling you which
publisher, even though it's still in print, because I was 18 and it was dumb).

I started getting one-acts and full length plays produced in a variety of
theaters, but eventually kind of got out of it when I got more into fiction,
working as a journalist, and other venues. I have a tendency to drift in and
out of venues.

jms