Seattle's support system got me through those early, difficult years. It was a very funky, very friendly, very relaxed place that had it all for a writer.

I'm not really a mass market writer.

Poland is a wildly dramatic and tragic story. It's just unbelievable what went on with those people. How they survive, I don't really know. The Germans had a particular hatred for the Poles; they really considered them subhuman Slavs, and they were very brutal to them.

I love Paris for the million reasons that everybody loves the city. It's an incredibly romantic and beautiful place.

I grew up reading genre writers, and to the degree that Eric Ambler and Graham Greene are genre writers, I'm a genre writer.

I got married very early, and in no time at all, we had three children. And it seemed to me I had an obligation to support them.