When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.

I was actually born in New York City, but my family moved to Atlantic City when I was five, this being my dad's home town, so I think that qualifies me as a Jersey resident if not a bona fide native.

Whenever I've had to tamper with history for plot purposes, I make sure to mention that in my author's note, and I try to keep such tampering to a bare minimum. I also attempt to keep my characters true to their historical counterparts. This is not always possible, of course.

I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.

The disgraces I suffer should be attributed to me, but the praises that I get go to my family and teachers. It is they who decided what I would become.

In focusing towards the outer world, we celebs forget to focus on our inner well-being. We don't lead perfect lives, and only when we learn to have peace with our family members can we have peace in life.

I suspect there isn't an actor alive who was able to truthfully answer his family's questions after his first day's activity in his future profession.

Whenever I've not known what to do, I've always gone back to the Carter Family because there was nothing like singing with my aunts and my mom to my grandma.