Gregg Hurwitz writes:
I started The Tower while I was an undergraduate studying English and Psychology. The summer after my sophomore year, I had a crazy dream about a submerged prison and I woke up at 2 in the morning and wrote down the details. I was nineteen. I didn't think much of it, and I went back to college the next year and was kept more than busy with work and sports. But the next summer, I returned to the dream fragment and started shaping a novel around it.
I finished the rough draft of The Tower the summer after my senior year, and revised while I was getting a one-year master's (and when I was supposed to be working on a dissertation about Shakespearean tragedy). I was extremely fortunate to get noticed by the right people shortly after and sold The Tower within a few months of leaving school. I dedicated The Tower to my attorney, Marc Glick, who first read the rough draft and flew me to New York to meet with agents.
Gregg Hurwitz wrote his first novel while completing a BA from Harvard and a Master's from Oxford. He has since written 4 additional thrillers, the latest of which is The Program.