I'm a historian in my own mind.

I hate The Confederate cause. I've always felt that they are our Nazis and the rebel flag was our swastika.

I am a genre lover - everything from spaghetti western to samurai movie.

I always thought it was a B.S. thing that they didn't show it [scalping] in other Westerns, but especially if you're going to really go with the idea that we're desecrating the bodies, and the idea is to strike fear in the hearts of other German soldiers, then we had to see what they're talking about.

That's how it always is with me: the thing that sets me down to start writing is usually not what I end up doing. Because, as much as I love genre, and I try to deliver the goods, I go off from it. I go do my own thing.

Particularly as a writer, it is my job to ignore social critics, or the response that social critics might have when it comes to the opinions of my characters, the way they talk, or anything that can happen to them.

In real life there are no bad guys. Everybody just has their own perspective.