In 1974, W.D. Richter 's wife read a review of Dirty Pictures from the Prom, the debut novel from Dartmouth College graduate and writer Earl Mac Rauch, and recommended it to her husband. Richter, also an alumnus from the college, read the book, loved it, and wrote Mac Rauch a letter. The two men began corresponding. When the writer told him about his interest in becoming a screenwriter, Richter offered him an open-ended invitation to visit him in Los Angeles where he was attending the University of Southern California and working as a script analyst for Warner Bros.