Haris Orkin

Dear reader: I was a shy, skinny, bookish, bespectacled, and insecure twelve-year-old living in the suburbs of Chicago when I first realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief. I wanted to be James West in The Wild, Wild West. I wanted to be James Bond. Those men had no fear. They were confident in any situation and were comfortable in their own skin. I think that was the biggest fantasy of all for an awkward pre-teen struggling through puberty and that’s what inspired You Only Live Once. At age twelve I lived a life of perpetual embarrassment. In hindsight, that’s probably how most twelve-year-olds feel, but at the time, I didn’t know that. So I started lifting weights. I boxed. I studied karate. I became a rock climber and learned to scuba dive. I even studied in London for a year and traveled the world. But I never did become an international super spy. Instead, I became a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, and a WGA and BAFTA Award-nominated game writer known for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Mafia 3, and Dying Light. Please connect with me on Facebook and feel free to ask me anything. This is a two-way conversation.