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I've always had an abundance of material about the subjects of my biographies.

I am in the interesting position of being sometimes skimmed by the critics and called literature and sometimes called historical fiction.

I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.

I write literary biographies, so above all, I have to love the subject's books. But choosing a subject is tough.

Fiction and nonfiction, for me, involve very different processes.

But I don't read a lot of fiction. I prefer the nonfiction stuff.

There's more fiction in my life than in books, so I don't bother with them.

It's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously.

Calling one thing 'literature' and another 'fiction' is a way to create status where there is none.

I write both fiction and nonfiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later.