Pat Cook got his first taste of seeing his work in print when he was still in high school in Frankston, Texas, writing for the school paper. During the summers, he wrote a column for his hometown newspaper. It wasn't until college, however, when he saw the movie version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, that he decided to try his hand at writing plays. His first one act, The Boys in the Halls, was produced at Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, Texas, in 1968. After moving to Houston in 1970, he found other writing assignments at AstroWorld, educational radio, nightclubs and local television. His first published play was Rest in Peace (Dramatic Publishing, 1976). Still, writing was only a sideline along with several other odd jobs. Along the way, more plays got published, and his wife, Rose Ann, taught him the joys of using a computer. This, coupled with his conviction to drop everything else and write full time, proved to be a turning point in his life. Cook is now retired with more than 140 published plays across nine publishers.
