The Herald-Palladium, 7/5/2009

Beyond romance

Benton Township author to receive lifetime achievement award for work in genre fiction

By JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO
H-P Features Writer

Author Jill Culby doesn’t like the word romance.

“I’ve never liked it,” she says during an interview at her Benton Township farmhouse. “For me these stories are about someone who has been through the worst and ends up stronger than she thought she could be. It’s about a woman’s quest.”

Culby’s own journey has made her – or at least her most common pseudonym, Jennifer Greene – one of the most recognizable names in contemporary romance fiction. After three decades and more than 80 published titles, Culby will receive the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award on July 18 at the annual Romance Writers of America conference in Washington, D.C.

“I think (husband Larry Culby) is more scared than I am,” she says of the event. “Twenty-five hundred women writers is a lot to put on a guy.”

Culby, 60, who has been on numerous best-seller lists, has always used a pseudonym, a practice propagated by romance publishing houses. In addition to Jennifer Greene, she has written novels as Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey. She also goes by Alison Hart – her middle and maiden names – for business purposes.

“When I first started, I didn’t have a choice,” she says. “Sometimes they didn’t even wait for you to choose a pseudonym, and if you changed publishing houses you had to leave that name behind. … I’ve always been fine with it. People know me as Jennifer Greene, so it’s to no one’s advantage to change it now.”

Culby grew up in the Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe and started creating stories when she was 9.

“I was as shy as you can be,” she says. “Writing stories was the way I expressed myself. My mother would have to kick me outside to play because when I was inside I was either reading or making up stories. … I remember writing a story about Santa Claus having a conversation with an angel about the meaning of Christmas. How corny can you get?”

After graduating from Grosse Pointe High School, Culby attended Michigan State University, earning bachelor’s degrees in English and psychology, while meeting future husband Larry Culby. The couple married in 1970, shortly after graduation, and returned to Benton Township, where Larry took over his family’s farm. Jill Culby, meanwhile, taught French at Benton Harbor High School, and although she says she “wanted a million kids,” she settled on two, Jennifer and Ryan.

“I spent endless hours reading literary books,” Culby says. “And as much as I loved being a mom, when my kids were little I really just needed some lighter reading. I picked up my first romance book, and I couldn’t believe how good, how fun it was.”

That book was Anne McCaffrey’s “Ring of Fire.” Soon after Culby began writing some ideas of her own.
“I needed something for me,” she says. “So when the kids would take a nap, I started writing stories. It hit like an addiction.”

After talking it over with Larry, Culby decided to write a contemporary romance novel. The stipulation? If she got a rejection letter she would give up romance writing and return to work.

“Of course, I know now that all writers get a million rejections,” Culby says. “In a way, being that naive worked to my advantage. I finished about five books, but I didn’t send them out right away. I kept putting them in the closet because I didn’t want to get a rejection and have to give it up.”

Eventually those manuscripts landed on the desk of Meg Ruley, who is still her agent today.

Culby has written for Harlequin, Avon, Berkley and Dell, selling her first book in 1980. She has used the pseudonym Jennifer Greene since 1986, landing on several best-seller lists. She has won four RITA awards and been inducted into the Romance Writers of America’s Hall of Fame, and her books are now published in more than 22 languages.
Culby says it hasn’t always come easy.

“Sometimes words fight you like the devil,” she says. “Sometimes I fill a page with ‘damns,’ so I don’t have to face a blank page. If you’re waiting for inspiration, you might as well be waiting for Godot. I’m not a fan of ‘I’m not in the mood.’ If the words aren’t great, that’s too bad – you’ll have to do rewrites later.”

Culby writes daily, getting up at 6 a.m. After a dose of morning coffee and a few minutes spent checking e-mail, “I’m off,” Culby says. She writes until lunch, takes a nap, then is back at it spending her afternoons doing research or rewrites.

“When you first start writing a book it tends to pour out, but in the process you have to learn your craft,” she says. “There’s only one way to learn it, and that’s by doing it.”

In addition to writing, Culby has become an advocate for the genre. She frequently gives workshops to discuss the value of the work, even if she has to defend the stereotypes that continue to plague the romance world.

“My favorite thing always has been to write about something that was forbidden,” Culby says. “I’ve done books on date rape, alcoholism. There’s been abuse in childhood. You can’t beat people over the head with a sledgehammer, but there’s a way to tell women who have been through these things that you can recover. It’s not real life, and these books aren’t meant to be real life, but it doesn’t mean the support they feel isn’t real.”

Her latest book, “Blame it on Paris,” which is partially set in South Bend, was published in 2008. In 2010, four more Jennifer Greene books will hit the shelves – the romance suspense series “Whisper of Danger,” “Taste of Danger” and “Heat of Danger” and “Blame it of the Blizzard,” part of the “Baby it’s Cold Outside” anthology for Harlequin.

“Then I’ll have some free time to work on new ideas,” Culby says. “I’d love to write about an 18th-century woman apothecary. They dealt with drugs and divorce, everything we deal with today. I’ll sit and read and develop story ideas and send to my agent. Then it’s her problem.”

Culby says she’s humbled by the Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award because it is given to her by her peers, but she also knows that she would continue writing even if her work was never acknowledged.

“I actually thought they made a mistake when they called me,” Culby says, “It’s truly a joy because I didn’t think people noticed the work I’ve done for the genre … but you can’t write for a living for the money or accolades. It has to be a passion. You have to love it, because writing is one of those things you can never stop learning.”

jbonfiglio@TheH-P.com