I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot.

I love good stories; you have to have a good plot - characters which intertwine with a good plot.

I love fictional characters...they can't break your heart.

I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I'm convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better.

I have one weakness: I love meat loaf.

Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.