Joshua C. Cohen
Joshua C. Cohen began writing "Leverage" after reading a news account of a horrific attack by a group of high school seniors on their fellow underclassmen. When the victims reluctantly came forward, instead of receiving offers of help, they were ostracized by the surrounding community for sullying the reputation of the school and causing a cancellation of the football season. Joshua's fascination with that part of human nature--the need to keep quiet when awful things occur and how that leads to victims getting wronged twice--is what started the whole story that eventually led to "Leverage."
Joshua C. Cohen grew up in Minnesota and was an avid athlete in many sports but he fell in love with gymnastics and devoted most of his time to training in that sport. Despite his intense effort, he discovered very quickly, when he walked on to the men's gymnastics program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, that there was no way he was going to compete at the collegiate level. Joshua promptly walked himself right back off the team and chose, instead, to live vicariously as an elite level gymnast by rooming with and befriending members of the squad.
"Leverage" allowed Joshua a perfect opportunity to combine his love of both gymnastics and football into one story."
“Being a hero usually isn't much fun. It's terrifying, most of the time, right up until the point you make it out safe. It's being scared to do the right thing and doing it anyway.”
“On any given day you have the chance to be a hero or a victim, predator or prey. Most times, circumstances are beyond your control. Other times, you got a choice but you think about it too much and you freeze up. Sometime, though, you're forced to react and it's all instinct. May not make a damn bit of difference in a bad situation. But sometimes instinct squeezes the good out of you, forces you to be a hero before you even realize it.”