My father is an architect, so I often think like a designer or an architect. I remember when I was admiring buildings, I would look up at them and see this perspective and this awesome power of the monument in front of me.

I've been one of the image-makers who created this concept of perfection. I've done a thousand magazine covers where I'm celebrating Hollywood, glamorous people. Which is all good. It's all entertainment.

I am not a photojournalist and certainly not used to the Jason Bourne type stuff that some photographers have to deal with.

I've always had a healthy disregard for authority - it allows me to do my job as a portrait photographer and not as someone who is playing the power game.

One of the biggest challenges of writing for middle-grade or even young-adult readers is that I don't want to have too much violence in it - which really limits what you can do. It's important that they're not just bloodbaths or glorifying violence. I always try to show that a person who dies leaves a hole. There's grief in my books.

Before our kids start coming home from Iraq in body bags and women and children start dying in Baghdad, I need to know, what did Iraq do to us?

I think 'Historian' is ultimately a positive record, but I was a little bit worried about taking people into a dark world. I tried to do it with as much care as possible, but it's not easy to ask people to think about death or loss or confusion.

Public speaking is the number-one fear... even over death!