Today, my guest
is Favorite Author Shirl Henke, author of wonderful Western historical
romances. Shirl lives in St. Louis where
she enjoys gardening in her yard and greenhouse, cooking holiday dinners for
her family and listening to jazz. In addition to helping brainstorm and
research her books, her husband Jim is “lion tamer” for their two wild tomcats,
Pewter and Sooty, geniuses at pillage and destruction. Sooty's repertoire would
be considered more impressive by many gardeners than Shirl's--he averages
around a hundred mole kills a year.
Shirl has been a RITA
finalist twice, and has won three Career Achievement Awards, an Industry Award
and three Reviewer’s Choice Awards from Romantic
Times. In 2013, Shirl was designated
by Romantic Times as one of the
"pioneers" of the modern romance novel.
“I wrote my first twenty-two
novels in longhand with a ballpoint pen—it’s hard to get good quills these
days,” she says. Dragged into the twenty-first century by her son Matt, a
telecommunication specialist, Shirl now uses two of those “devil machines.”
Another troglodyte bites the dust.
The Interview:
Regan, I'm
thrilled and honored that you have asked me for this interview. I hope my
answers will pique your reader's interest in my novels.
You have written many Westerns, Shirl. Is that
your favorite period in which to set a story? If yes, why?
For me, the most fascinating
place to set a story is the West. I've
been intrigued by it since childhood when I watched all those wonderful TV
westerns. "Have Gun Will Travel" was a favorite. It wasn't until I
was in high school that I learned Paladin actually meant "knight
errant." I was delighted with the sense of humor and cleverness of the
writers. But it wasn't until I became a history major in college that I
realized the West was far more.
The West (with a capital
"W") is a thing of the imagination, a promise for a better life, as
limitless as each individual's dream. The idea of West shifted borders over
time. The first settlers who crossed the Cumberland Gap called it Kentucky. Men
crossing the Sabine called it Texas. Dirt farmers found it in Kansas. To gold
seekers it glittered in California, then rode on Nevada's zephyr winds and
beckoned under Montana's Big Sky. Later the grandeur of the Rockies and finally
the ice palaces of Alaska held that promise of western freedom.
What an incredible cast of
characters a writer can find on the frontier, where every ethnic, racial and
religious group converged. All encountered the Native Americans, about whom I
have written nearly a dozen books, particularly focusing on heroes or heroines
of mixed blood, caught between red and white worlds, belonging to neither.
Who were these diverse and
intrepid people lured by the mystic of the West? First to arrive were the
Spanish. Then came Appalachian settlers, Czarist Russians, French fur trappers,
and the so-called "cattle barons" who were often titled noblemen from
the Germanies, England and Poland. Welsh and Irish dug canals and Chinese built
railroads. Newly freed African-Americans escaped the bloody carnage of civil
war to become farmers, gunmen and the famous "Buffalo" soldiers. No
city in the west was without a Jewish community. I've found a treasure trove of
heroes, villains and colorful supporting actors.
All of these men and women
traveled west to explore the unknown, to seek their fortunes for good or for
ill.
The West is as spiritual as
it is material, the stuff of primal myth. I don't think it's accidental that
the "Star Trek" franchise has become as much a classic as John Ford's
westerns. The opening line of that first TV series says it all: "Space, the
final frontier..." Marshall
Dillon and Captain Kirk have a lot more in common than Hollywood ever imagined.
How could any writer wanting
to combine romance and adventure and to create bold, fearless protagonists
resist weaving stories from this rich tapestry?
Do you have a favorite
among your stories?
Of well over thirty books
I've had published, my favorite single title remains one of my earliest, Love Unwilling, set in Old California
where a New England sea captain married into a wealthy Hispanic family. He had
two sons, brothers, whose double love stories still touch my heart in ways no
others have.
David is the lucky golden
elder brother who throws away his inheritance when he wins an Irish saloon girl
in a card game. Miguel is the shy, bookish younger brother, studying to become
a priest when he is summoned home to make a dynastic marriage with an American
girl to save the family's vast land holdings. Impoverished and eager to better
herself, Katie has David teach her to read and write. Ellie is young and
spoiled, a rich girl forced into a marriage with the second son who she
believes does not want her. Ah, yes, the conflicts and twists of their tales
and how they intertwine still fascinate me.
Your original covers were awesome… is
there one you liked more than the others?
Yes, actually I have two, one
painting I purchased from the artist many years ago. Max Ginsburg is a gifted
artist as well as cover illustrator and I am honored to call him my good
friend. When I told him I wanted Hawk Sinclair to look like Nick Mancuso did in
the movie Night Wing, he actually
rented the film and then painted Hawk perfectly, to go with the female model
I'd selected from his vast collection of cover illustrations. I looked at his
rendering of her face and said, "That's Carrie!" Capture the Sun's cover was so perfect that I received permission
from Max to use it on my e-book edition.
The second cover I really
felt captured the protagonists and theme of the book was Pale Moon Stalker's cover. I bought the rights to the painting from
the illustrator Franco because I loved it almost as much as Capture The Sun. It graces both print
and ebook editions, too. Oh yes, if I
don't mention this Jim will kill me: on
the River Nymph cover, he is the guys
pulling off the ruffled gambler's shirt.
When writing...do you put yourself in
the heroine’s role?
That would drive me crazy.
I'm not bold and adventurous enough to be a heroine. I'm a storyteller who
works until I can see the hero and heroine as well as the setting and plot
before I begin to write. While I'm writing, I get inside the heads of the
heroine, the hero and, perhaps more importantly, the villain. No story works
without a really good, or if you will, a very bad villain.
I also don't follow the
"rules of writing" by remaining in only one point of view during a
scene. I "head hop" but make very certain that whoever is thinking,
feeling or saying something is clearly identified. I've never been able to have
a good rousing fight scene--not to mention a love scene--without moving back
and forth, whether it's between heroine-hero, or protagonist-villain.
What’s the first thing you do when you
finish writing a book?
My husband says I have a
German anal-retentive type personality, so the first thing I feel compelled to
do (after having a glass of champagne) is clean my office! You can't imagine a
worse disaster than my workspace when I've completed a book project. Every
desk, chair and most of the floor are buried in notes, books, papers and maps.
I gather all the usable reference notes together and create a file folder for
that book. I replace reference books and maps in my cabinets or on my
bookshelves or return books (always well overdue) to the library. Then, it's
off to begin another book and the mess starts all over again...
If you could interview one person (and
it doesn’t have to be a writer) who would it be?
No doubt, Sam Houston. Ever
since I read John Kennedy's Profiles In
Courage, I had admired Houston. While I was getting my M.A., I was assigned
a research paper on Otto von Bismarck, Germany's Iron Chancellor. He was a
brilliant political manipulator who played a long game. When I started writing
my Texas Trilogy with Cactus Flower,
Houston was the general of the Texas army who won independence from Mexico and
created the Texas Republic where he became the first president. My fictional
hero Jim Slade was a spy for Houston.
Originally, I had not thought
to go further with Houston's character, but the more I researched and wrote on
that first book in the series, the more his brilliant real-life machinations
playing England and France against the United States impressed me. He, too,
played a long game. I thought, "What a "Bismarckian"
politician!" Then I realized that Houston maneuvered his Texas Republic
into the American Union nearly forty years before Bismarck unified Germany! The
Iron Chancellor was a Houstonian politician! Houston's bombastic, larger than
life figure strides through Moon Flower
and Night Flower as a United States
senator and governor of the state. He was one of the most brilliant minds of
the nineteenth century.
What do you do to unwind and relax?
I cook. I love reading
cookbooks and clipping recipes from newspapers and magazines, as well as being
in my kitchen. For those interested in what I've produced, please go to my
website and click on the recipes page at the top right for a selection of
nearly forty recipes I've "adjusted" to my specs from various
sources. Nothing quite like smelling delectable aromas coming from the kitchen
to soothe and relax anyone.
I know your husband Jim is a partner in
bringing your backlist to ebooks… what is his role?
Actually, Jim began helping me
with my writing long before ebooks ever made their appearance. He started as my
"fight choreographer" for action scenes (on the way to a Ph.D he was
a professional judo instructor) as well as my gun expert. Gradually, he began
to edit and then to offer me story ideas, even to sketch out whole plots. The River Nymph, Pale Moon Stalker and Yankee
Earl are good examples of books to which he's contributed heavily. Not only
is he a retired English professor, but also possesses a razor-sharp wit that is
great when I'm stuck for a good come-back line for one of my protagonists.
What are you working on now?
I'm just putting the
finishing touches on a big sprawling new Western romance, The Cherokee, set in 1872-73 that moves from Virginia City,
Montana Territory to the Nations in what is now Oklahoma. This is another of my
"half-breed hero" books with Ross Chisholm being one quarter
Cherokee. He is highly educated, even having studied at the Sorbonne in France.
But when my heroine Carolina Randolph meets him, he is a hired gunman working
for her father's competition during the gold rush.
Caro is spoiled and rich, but
also very well educated—in France. Imagine her surprise when the fascinating
but "crude" gunman embarrasses her by translating her curses from
French to English! Both are highly vulnerable people who have grown up without
family love, lonely and rootless in a world that in one way or another rejects
them...until her father hires Ross to become her bodyguard...two lost souls
find each other.
I hope to have the book
complete and on sale as an ebook original in January. Please check my website
to read an excerpt of The Cherokee.
Regan, again, my thanks for
giving me this opportunity to connect with the many followers on your outstanding
site.
You are most welcome, Shirl!
And for my followers, here’s your chance to ask Shirl a question. One lucky
commenter will win the ebook of Love Unwilling.
This is the 3rd in the North American Woman trilogy, which is a part of the 6-book Cameron Saga, and it is one you will really enjoy. I loved this trilogy and highly recommend it.
