Writing.Com General Discussion

I've been thinking about writing a creative non-fiction book with the main character being a person who's currently alive and spending time in a federal prison. His story will be central to the book, but I also want to write about the lives of the people his crime affected. Basically several personal stories clashing in the end. I would need to visit this man in prison and interview him as well as interview his friends and family.

Does anyone have advice on how to go about this? Should I write the man in prison and propose the book and offer him a percentage? Like an autobiography? Or should I just request interviews and get waivers signed?

The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.
- Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume