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The first story I ever sold was to 'Argosy' magazine, which no longer exists. That issue also contained work by several other more celebrated writers, like Ray Bradbury - so I felt I had at least one toe on the ladder.

John D. Rockefeller apparently became more of a tightwad the richer he got. I don't know if it is true, but one story I read was about one of his sons having to wear his older sister's clothes in order to save money.

My inclination, as an old-school, classically trained journalist, is not to go with a story unless I have it hard. It's not good enough to say something based on rumors that were flying around.

My life has been sensationalised into a rags to riches story.

Robert Mapplethorpe asked me to write our story the day before he died. I had never written a book of nonfiction, and so it took me almost two decades to write that book.

And it turned out that the Roberts Commission did not fully utilize the information available and that it came to conclusions which were I think quite short sighted and, indeed, in some cases, scapegoated individuals.

I read more books for research purposes, whether it's a fictionalized biography of Johannes Gutenberg or a stack of urban fantasies.

Reading 'Blood Will Out,' one begins to understand how so many people were duped by Clark Rockefeller. All the imposter needs is some kind of initial agreement that he is who he says he is; thereafter, consensus builds via a network of human relationships.

I'm not fascinated by one particular case, but by knowledge that I had no idea was out there.