The Internet makes it possible for people like me to live the way I do now. Without it, I'd have to be in New York or some other city. I think the Internet is the greatest invention in history after antibiotics.

Listen to advice. You don't know how many writer's conferences I've taught at where at least half the audience fights all the conventions of the field.

I tend to come up with people more than situations - most of my books start with a character.

People always seemed to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.

I'd like to write a history, maybe of the Reformation.

I've been a teacher at the college level, in composition mostly, and I've been an editor on magazines.

You've either got to find a way to make your continuing characters interesting without making them maudlin or overwrought, or you've got to put more emphasis on the suspects.