Robert Trebor

Okay, since Amazon uses Frank McCourt's bio as a model for inspiration, I'll start there. I actually met Frank and shared the stage with him in 1998 at the Kennedy Center as a guest presenter at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards ceremony. Kathy Bates, Joyce Maynard, and Walter Mosley were the other celebs sharing advice with burgeoing artists. My major nugget was "If you're not being rejected at least six times a day, you're not trying hard enough." My reason for being invited was that I had been a multiple winner of this award in high school, and that in '98 I was a popular character on the TV series Hercules and Xena. After the event we all went out to a bar in DC, and Frank held up his end as a voluble thirsty Irish bloke. He was genuinely sweet, unassuming, and still slightly dazed by the spotlight of fame after all the years of being a working stiff, teaching in the New York public schools. Fast forward 14 years to 2012, and I was diagnosed with acute leukemia. Was I surprised! After aggressive chemo I went into remission...for a short time. After I relapsed doctors told me I had a four percent chance of surviving a couple months if I couldn't remit sufficently to get to stem cell transplant. Through a series of fortunate but somewhat grueling circumstances, I got there. And I am writing this. And maybe I was spared so I could write The Haircut Who Would Be King. Maybe it will enter the political conversation and do some good.