Writers of novels live in a strange world where what's made up is as important as what's real.

We can learn so much looking outside our core field of expertise.

History at its best is a gritty, dirty business.

Copywriters, journalists, mainstream authors, ghostwriters, bloggers and advertising creatives have as much right to think of themselves as good writers as academics, poets, or literary novelists.

At the end of the day, that's what a family is - a group of different people who accept each other.

It is one of the benchmarks of a culture I always think – the page at which it operates. A good way to measure it is to order a taxi and see how irate local people get if it is late.

I always thought that bagels and lox was my soul food, but it turns out it's sushi.