In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

We''re all misfits here,” he says, almost proudly. “That's why I started this squat, after all. For people like us, who don't fit in anywhere else. Halfies and homos and hopeless romantics, the outcast and outrageous and terminally weird. That's where art comes from, Jimmy, my friend. From our weirdnesses and our differences, from our manic fixations, our obsessions, our passions. From all those wild and wacky things that make each of us unique.

When I started in the business, there was a thing called adult fantasy, but nobody quite knew what it was, and most publishers didn't have an adult fantasy list. They had science fiction lists, which they stuck a little bit of fantasy into.

I have a great respect for the academics who are working with the source material. My hat's off to them.

I divide my time between homes in Arizona and England, six months a year in each place.

The first job I was offered was as an editorial assistant. I think it was the best thing for me, in terms of being a storyteller by nature, to have spent years being an editor because I learned so much from it.

Happiness is a talent like any other. It's another art form. Some people are good at it, some people aren't.