SEELIE KAY: Postcards from The Ledge: This week in The Loft: Author J. Arlene Culiner!

Joining me today in The Loft is author J. Arlene Culiner. She writes mysteries, history books, and what she calls, "Perfectly believable romances," filled with funny and gutsy heroines, and dashing, loveable heroes, all over the age of 40. Arlene resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village, but previously lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave-dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted house on the English moors. In addition to working as a writer, she has held jobs as a photographer, social critical artist, musician, and occasional actress. Born in New York and raised in Toronto, Arlene has crossed much of Europe on foot.

Author J. Arlene Culiner

S: Welcome back to The Loft, Arlene!

What is the best/worst thing that has ever happened to you as a writer?

A: Crossing the country for book talks and having no one show up. This has happened to me several times. With hindsight, these failures eventually become funny stories, but when they’re happening, they’re pretty dreary.

S: I imagine that would be pretty disappointing.

What was your worst date ever?

A: I remember it quite clearly although it took place many, many years ago. I must have been 16 or 17, and I had been asked out by the handsomest, most desirable boy in school. He was tall, blond, suave, and he dated the most popular girls. Why me? I was so overwhelmed by him that, caught in the grip of shyness and terror, I couldn’t say one word. It was a terrible evening. Of course, he never asked me out again.

S: Ah, teenage regrets. Funny how they plague us years later.

What attracted you to your current partner?

A: He seemed so calm and so intelligent. I listened to him discussing art and politics and history, and I thought, “Yes, that’s exactly the man I want.” After that, he didn’t stand a chance! How could he resist me?

S: Do you read reviews?

A: Yes, I do read reviews. They can be helpful, pointing out things that I should correct. When the reviews are silly, I just shake my head. But what is most annoying is when it’s obvious that the reviewer hasn’t really read the book.

S: I have a reviewer troll who always gives my books the lowest rating possible. Logically, I know she's not reading the books, because if she hates them so much, why continue reading? Ugh.

What’s the best advice you have ever been given?

A: To take more time off. To stop sitting in front of my computer for more than a few hours each day. There are so many other things I can do, and they make my life richer. Why be a compulsive writer? Also, if a manuscript doesn’t please a publisher or an editor and they want me to change too many things, then I shouldn’t be working with them.

S: What do you consider your greatest achievement?

A: Winning the Tannenbaum Prize for Canadian history for one of my non-fiction books.

S: Congratulations. That is an honor.

What inspired "A Room in Blake’s Folly?"

A: I wanted to write a romance in which I would present the Far West as it really was — not the mythical place of films and adventure books—but the real one. I also love writing about people who are different, who don’t really fit into mainstream society, who challenge the status quo and take risks. What better setting for such people than a silver boomtown in Nevada?

S: Is there anything special you would like people to know about "A Room in Blake’s Folly?"

A: In "A Room in Blake’s Folly," readers will find the prostitutes and dance hall ladies of the Far West. As one former prostitute says, “What possibilities did we have? A few of us had received only the poorest education, others, none at all. Some had been brutalized by family members, by employers, or were abandoned by lovers, and most of us had young children to support.” There are also cowboys, and they are far from the cowboys of myth for, in reality, a cowboy was a laborer on horseback whose job it was to herd and transport cattle from ranch to market. Some were European immigrants, others were Mexicans, American Natives, Civil War soldiers; one quarter of cowboys were freed ex-slaves. A cowboy’s life was hard, and most died young. Earning only enough for food, a place to sleep, and a small amount of spending money, wearing the same clothes for weeks, their broad Stetsons protected them from the sun and served as water bowls for themselves and their horses.

Here's the blurb--

If only the walls could speak…

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake’s Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels, scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town. Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a room at a long corridor's end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.