Arlene Culiner is Visiting and Talking about Panster or Plotter #MFRWAuthor #Writing #Storyteller #Non-fiction #Hungarian village #Women's fiction

 

 1.Are you a panster or a plotter or perhaps a bit of both? Which comes first - characters or plot for you?

 

I can’t really answer this, probably because I don’t analyze my way of functioning as a writer or as a visual artist. I’m a natural storyteller, so I suppose I do both at the same time.

 

2.What are you working on now? Is this a book in a current series or something totally new?

 

I’m finishing a non-fiction manuscript about life in a small Hungarian village. Those Absent on the Great Hungarian Plain will be published by Claret Press, London, in February. I’m also finishing a standalone women’s fiction, Words for Patty Jo. The style is something quite new for me, also the story is a departure from my romance books. Yes, there is a romance, but it is subtle and off-stage for much of the story.

 

3.Do you have some kind of object or place that figures in most of your books? I use gems a lot, hospitals and caves.

 

Good food, especially spicy, herby vegetarian meals. Also good wines. The settings for my stories are always out of the way places — small communities, semi-ghost towns, places no one goes to. And they’re filled with cranky characters.

 

4.Do you write everyday or just when the spirit hits?

 

When the spirit hits. Why force myself to do something I don’t want to do? Life is too short for nonsense like that.

 

5.Where can we find you?

 

In my house in a small French village: https://www.jill-culiner.com/

On my romance website: https://www.j-arleneculiner.com/

On my history book site: https://www.jillculiner-writer.com/

On SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/j-arlene-culiner

And here: https://linktr.ee/j.arleneculiner

 

7.Who are your favorite authors? What about a book you’ve enjoyed?

 

I don’t have a favorite. I have many authors I love, and there are many books that I’ve read recently that are excellent: the brilliant Istanbul history Midnight at the Pera Palace by Charles King, Kapka Kassabova’s Street Without a Name, that describes life in communist Bulgaria. I also very much enjoyed Stephen Henighan’s Lost Province about his year spent in Moldava.

 

I could continue listing wonderful books for a long time, but, as you can tell, I love those that take me elsewhere, that are rich with information, and that are beautifully written.