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So often, we don't realize that the very moments in which we live become our history, our story.

History releases me from my own experience and jogs my fictional imagination.

History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.

As an author of narrative history, I read a lot of history books.

I feel like history is about going and discovering the great human stories that just are every bit as relevant as anything that's going on today.

I tend to like to read history - recent history, because I find that much more intriguing than just a writer's imagination.

I don't sit down in front of my computer screen and think, 'Right. Today I shall begin a story set in this or that period of history.' I just get ideas from the world around me.

I'm just a storyteller.

I was always a storyteller. I just didn't know it. I never shared the stories I made up inside my head when I was growing up. I never wrote them down, either. But I can't remember a time when they weren't there.