Acknowledgments

Among the many people who helped compose With William Burroughs, I would like to thank all our actors and crew, drawing special attention to Mr. James Grauerholz, Burroughs’s erstwhile factotum, who encouraged and aided the project throughout; Mr. Terry Southern, who was particularly helpful; and the éminence grise himself, grand, groovy and beloved William S. Burroughs.

In 1978, the National Endowment for the Arts gave me a writer’s grant on the basis of an outline for this book. The late Tom Forcade, founder and owner of High Times, provided funds that enabled me to follow Burroughs to Colorado, Los Angeles, Berlin, and London. Interview directed me toward the basic concept of the book as a dinner party and printed some of these conversations in earlier forms. Thanks its editors, to Bob Colacello and Robert Hayes. And in the final presentation of the text, I am especially indebted to my editor, Jeannette Seaver. And my new editor, Jim Fitzgerald.