SOURCE: "Punctuation and Pretzels," in People Weekly, Vol. 45, No. 9, March 4, 1996, p. 41.

[In the following essay, Lambert describes how Nathan's Run earned publication.]

An exclamation point almost kept John Gilstrap from getting published. New York City agent Molly Friedrich was about to become the 28th to reject Gilstrap's manuscript, then called Nathan!, in her case without reading it because of the offending punctuation. ("It apparently screams, 'Amateur!,'" the author explains.) But Friedrich's assistant Sheri Holman noticed Gilstrap was a fellow William & Mary grad and read further. The result: a heart-pounding tale of suspense—rechristened Nathan's Run, about a 12-year-old murder suspect trying to elude the heat and a hit man—that has already earned more than a million dollars in book and film rights.

"I'd like to have fallen through the floor," says Gilstrap, 39, who lives in Woodbridge, Va., with wife Joy, an insurance-claim rep, their 9-year-old son...