On TV, he portrayed prison chaplain Father Ray Mukada for the six seasons of the HBO series "Oz," and appears regularly as psychiatrist Dr. George Huang on NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." The actor details his experiences as a parent in a unique new book called "Following Foo," which hits stores May 13.

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B.D. Wong leads a busy life. He has "no complaints," but admits that, at times, "it's hard to keep up" with everything. That now includes parenting. Wong and partner Richie Jackson had identical twins—the product of Wong's seed and the egg of Jackson's sister, their surrogate mother—who were born almost three months premature. The story of Jackson Foo and Boaz Dov Wong, born May 28, 2000, is told in "Following Foo (the electronic adventures of the Chestnut Man)," a HarperEntertainment publication.

It's as different a book as one is likely to come across—a crazy quilt of e-mails, which is how the project began, combined with stream (and dream) of consciousness, some straight narrative and an occasional poem. Quoted on the back cover, John Lithgow, who played opposite Wong in M. Butterfly, calls it "the story of two parents and the weeks following the difficult birth of their twin boys. But the tale and its telling are like nothing you have ever read: heartbreaking, hair-raising, hilarious, and ultimately exhilarating. In his first book, B.D. Wong befriends the world."

"When you're writing, it's really unfettered. I worked very closely with an editor who made very gentle suggestions. There was no substantial rewriting done from my original vision. That gave me self-esteem. This is not a celebrity-tell-all book, or biography, or memoir. It attempts to have a creativity, and is as literary as I can make it." The book also contains e-mails from a number of celebrity friends, including Jayne Atkinson, Barbara Barrie, Kristin Chenoweth, Harvey Fierstein, Joel Grey, David Henry Hwang, Alfred Molina and Debra Monk.

Wong notes that he'd like to continue writing. Does that include fiction? "Yeah, and screenwriting." It's been reported that he's working on a screenplay of "Following Foo." Screenwriting would allow Wong to create roles that wouldn't be a problem for him to get. "Exactly," he says. "I've seen it time and time again. Things change when people take the reins—and this is my moment for doing that." How is he enjoying parenthood? "It gets better and better. But I don't want people to know too much [about his experiences] before reading the book." A short book tour is planned "for late May and early June. It's a five-city thing, kind of quick and dirty. [Laughs]"

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Born in San Francisco, Bradley Darryl Wong knew that he wanted to act "as an early teenager. I had studied the violin to a certain amount of success. At some point, I realized that I didn't really like the violin. I was only doing it because I could, and I was good at it, and everyone was encouraging me. But I didn't have a great love for it. When I was a freshman in high school, the drama teacher came to my class and asked that anyone who could play an instrument try out for the orchestra. They were doing Guys and Dolls.

"A young woman classmate said, 'You don't want to do that. That's no fun. My dad has a community-theatre group, and I'm in plays all the time. That's where you want to be.' I was secretly hoping that someone would make me go and try out for the play. I didn't have the guts to do that. It seemed so radical. I went with her. It changed my life totally. You could do something creative, and what I call 'alternative.' It's not in the main stream of choosing what your life path is. Everything aligned: I loved it, it loved me." However, Wong was not cast in a leading role. "The teacher didn't know me, and all these upperclassmen were getting parts.

"I showed up everyday, like a stray dog. She'd say, 'Oh, we need a policeman, or an emcee for the club.' By the end, I had a lot of stage time, because I had about six parts. That began a fantastic relationship with this drama teacher, who's no longer with us. She really changed my life. She infused in me a great love and respect for the theatre. I think I've changed a lot since high school, but what has not changed are all the things that she made me."

In 1982, Wong made his professional debut at Manhattan's Town Hall in Androcles and the Lion. "It was a great experience. That's how I got my Equity card." He was billed as Bradd (with two d's) Wong until the producers of M. Butterfly asked him to use initials instead of his first name, "because [the character's] gender was in question. I did it, with the idea of going back to Bradd, but the initials sort of stuck."

David Henry Hwang's Tony-winning play, set in 1960’s China, tells the story of the lengthy relationship between Rene Gallimard (John Lithgow), a French diplomat, and Song Liling (Wong), a singer in the Beijing Opera. The diplomat doesn't realize that the diva is a spy—or that she's really male. It was based on a true story, but Wong observes, "That's a very loose term. It is based on a three-sentence New York Times blurb about the story. David did no research on those two gentlemen and their situation. He read the blurb, which piqued his curiosity and made him ask a lot of questions. As an Asian-American man and writer, he answered those questions kind of allegorically—using their situation, though not their story. Continued...