We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.

We live through books; we have adventures in them, we lead alternative lives through them. We expand our memories through them. And that sometimes art can offer us more intense experiences of the world than life itself can.

Only Numbers. Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way.

In our memories the stories of our lives defy chronology, resist transcription: past ambushes present, and future hurries into history.

I guess you could say I've been writing all my life.

For me, writing historical fiction is all about finding a balance between reading, traveling, looking, imagining, and dreaming.

I've been getting into Nick Drake lately, the folk singer. Sad, gorgeous stuff.