Q: Was there a particular moment when you knew you were a writer?
It snuck up on me. I started out as a newspaper reporter, and at some point down the road, amid all the interviews and deadlines and stories filed, I realized that I had become a writer. Newspaper articles led to magazine pieces led to books; each step was a natural progression.

Q: Career high point and career low point? 
The high point was when my book, And the Sea Will Tell, went #1 on The New York Times hardcover bestseller list. I kept calling the recorded message to hear the weekly bestseller list, over and over... "And #1 is..." Low point: After delivering a book and I go more than a few months without a new deal. It always feels as if I'll never work again.

Q: Most unforgettable character you've encountered through your writing? 
Vintners Ernest and Julio Gallo, and Mercury 7 astronaut "Gordo" Cooper are at the top. If I had to choose one person, however, it would be the subject of my new book, Hero Found. Dieter Dengler was a U.S. Navy pilot who was shot down during the Vietnam War, and led an organized escape from a POW camp in Laos. Against seemingly overwhelming odds, he made it out alive. I was his shipmate, and we became friends after the navy. He was bigger-than-life and unforgettable, and my true hero.  

Q: From what work would you most like to remove your byline, and why?
Probably one of my articles in the National Enquirer, where I worked for six months in the 1970s before quitting and writing an expose about the place, which is the only newspaper in America that writes its attention-getting headlines before the actual stories are done. A strong candidate for denial: "Benjamin Franklin Forged All the Signatures on the Declaration of Independence!" by Bruce Henderson.

Q: Was there a book that changed your life? 
There were two: In Cold Blood and The Right Stuff. Truman Capote and Tom Wolfe opened up to me the world of narrative nonfiction, which they almost single-handedly made commercial. They not only provided a bridge from journalism to books for writers like myself, but they created an entire genre—one in which I have made my living for the past twenty-plus years.

Q: You have sold three books for film adaption. Some writers go their whole careers without having a book turned into a movie. What's your formula for film sales?
And the Sea Will Tell was a four-hour CBS miniseries, and went to the heart of what television executives were looking for at that time: true murder mysteries set in paradise. Two other books are presently under option and in various stages of development as feature films. Movie folks are always looking for good stories, and they particularly like true ones. Also, this brings us back to narrative nonfiction, in which practitioners such as myself freely utilize the tools of a novelist. More than one filmmaker has told me that a book of mine is easy to see as a movie because I place real characters in descriptive scenes with lots of dialog. Also, you need to have a separate and specialized agent or subagent—and a good one—to represent your work to Hollywood, just as writers need literary agents to represent them to book publishers.

Q: What have you read recently that you couldn’t put down?
True Compass: A Memoir, by Edward M. Kennedy.

Q: What does it mean to you to be a writer?
That I have a platform to tell real stories about real people. A writer is a storyteller.

Q: What’s new and/or upcoming?
My new book is Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, a July (2010) release from Harper. This is a story I have wanted to write since 1966, and spent the last three years researching and writing.