When I picked up one of J.Arlene Culiner’s books I was hooked from the start. Mainly the characters are mid-life from forty and above. The hero is so romantic, and the heroine tends to be feisty, which is just what the doctor ordered! The real-life characters make the tale fun to read. Lots of wisdom is mixed with a light humor, as well as good and bad emotions. Tales from the heart is what you’ll get when you read her novels. Enjoy! 

Your heroes/heroines are so much fun and are from a mature time in life. What made you choose to write about the older generation? 

Because it’s more interesting to write about people who are older. They’ve made decisions that have turned them into who they are now. The romances of twenty-year-olds might be juicy and titillating, but they aren’t as complicated or stimulating as the story of a sixty-year-old who has led an unusual life and has a strong character. 

The characters are refreshing and share a lot of strong emotions, up and down. Are the characters based on real-life people? 

Almost all my characters are based on real people. This is particularly true of my recent release, Words for Patty Jo. My hero and heroine were people I knew well—she was the class dud from a dreadful family; he was an excellent student with a bright future. Their story is based on actual events; and all the secondary characters are drawn from life. The same is true for my romantic suspense, The Turkish Affair. The thefts I described really did happen; the corrupt police officers, the archaeologists were people I met when I lived in Turkey. 

Your father and his wife sound like they enjoy life to the fullest. Does this rub off on you? 

I was one of those kids who ran away from home at seventeen, determined to see the world and choose a life very different from that of my parents. Although I visited them over the years, I certainly can’t say they had much influence. They enjoyed golf, security, a polite social life, and they avoided risk. I’ve lived in cars, have walked alone across much of Europe and slept in fields. I have never had much money, and have worked as a belly dancer, a b-girl, an artist, a radio announcer, a photographer, a translator for tourists—and that’s only the beginning of the list. 

In my day, I’ve met tons of grumpy seniors. Your life experiences are fascinating. Do you have someone in your life who is like that? 

Yes. Me. I’m grumpy, intractable, opinionated, and intolerant. I also laugh a lot and am funny and iconoclastic, which convinces people to like me despite my awful character. 

In your bio, it says there are no unwanted pregnancies in your books, which is a responsible way. What made you choose to write like that? 

Did I really say that? I suppose I meant that having and raising children is an important decision that has to be made by two people who agree with each other, have similar goals and tastes. Birth control information is available everywhere; springing an unwanted pregnancy on someone you barely know is trapping them, manipulating them, and using a child as blackmail. How could I approve of that or want to write about it? Well… perhaps it would be a good beginning for a murder mystery. Is this okay? I found it a bit harsh? 

I see you have some of your books in audio. Do you have a lot of people purchasing them? 

No, not a lot. They sell a bit. I was passionate about doing audio a few years ago, then I soon got bored with it. I prefer writing and creating to talking. 

When you write your non-fiction books, rather than mystery or romance, do you find it difficult to ‘switch hats’? 

Writing non-fiction—biographies and memoirs set in Eastern and Central Europe— demanded years of research and travel. I loved doing that, but I also needed a break from all the intensity. Therefore, I wrote fiction at the same time. Because I wanted Words for Patty Jo, my latest General/Women’s Fiction, to be something special, it took me around twelve years to get that together. You change a lot of hats in that time. 

What made you want to write non-fiction? 

Passion, a deep attachment to a certain subject (a portrait of Hungarian village life, Romanian immigrants who walked across their country in 1899, a forgotten Ukrainian-Jewish poet who died in 1856). I’ve just finished writing my memoir. Is it non-fiction, or have I turned my wandering life into a novel? Who knows? 

Do you have a number of future books to write in mind? 

I have a murder mystery just waiting to be worked on. It is also very much a character study. 

If you could live in one of your books as the heroine, which one or which future one would you choose? 

I’m the glamorous, feisty, annoying, nosy heroine of my own memoir, even though it’s the story of the other people I’ve met in my life (thus the title, Other People, Lost Places). I just finished writing it yesterday. Now all I need is a publisher. 

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