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Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.

Historians turning their hands to fiction are all the rage. Since Alison Weir led the way in 2006, an ever-growing number of established non-fiction writers - Giles Milton, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Harry Sidebottom, Patrick Bishop, Ian Mortimer and myself included - have written historical novels.

I like writing historical fiction.

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present.

History should not be left to the historians. Rather, be like Churchill. Make history, and then write it.

Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.

The novelist's obligation to remake the sensuous texture of a vanished world is also the historian's. The strongest fiction writers often do deep research to make the thought and utterances of lost time credible.

I find there's a thin, permeable membrane between journalism and history, and though some academic historians take a dim view of it, I gather a lot of strength and professional inspiration from passing back and forth across it.