I come from a big family of storytellers and, growing up, I liked hearing about the years before I was born.

One thing that's always helped quell my writerly anxieties is seeking out interviews with writers I admire.

The stories I love the most are where the author has a lot of empathy for everyone. The author loves their characters and takes their situations really seriously, and you feel like you're just dropped into a different world.

I love being in the archives, traveling, sitting in dusty places and looking at books with brittle pages. I love reading biographies and researching, to make myself informed about whatever political or historical time I'm writing about. From there, a lot of the emotional truths about my characters emerge.

I love my family more than life itself, but I can only sit at home by my pool eating barbecue food so many days before I go cuckoo.

Fear has never educated a child. Fear has never built a home.

I go home, I have dinner with my wife and kids, and after my kids go to bed, I'm back online doing stuff.

When children are small, parents should run their lives and not the other way around.