Mary Ann Webber

I love historical romance!

Why not escape pollution, the faltering economy, war and politics by reading a story from a beautiful period in our past? Give me long skirts, fine manners, and the clip-clop of carriage horses on cobblestone streets. The problems of the past seem romantic somehow

My favorite historical era is the thirty-five year period between the end of the American Civil War and 1900. It's often called the Gilded Age - and what sounds more intriguing than that?

After the Civil War, Americans changed the world forever by believing in the legend of the self-made man. Young entrepreneurs like Astor, Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Andrew Carnegie, J. P. Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller saw no boundaries. While they became the first millionaires, and eventually billionaires, they carried the American people along on a great adventure. They "Won the West" from their New York offices and made the United States a world powerhouse. What they started lasted throughout the twentieth century.

America is always my setting. There are thousands of untold events in American history that make wonderful situations for romances. I don't understand why writers in this country look so often to Europe.

Right now I'm writing on a paranormal set in Manhattan - mostly in the Gilded Age. I'm also working on a science fiction romance set in Texas in 1897. It contains no cowboys - just townspeople in a small community north of Fort Worth who try to cope with extraordinary events. The heroine is a school teacher who struggles to deny her love for the handsome, but peculiar, son of the town's banking family. It's actually a "steampunk" romance.

My "big" book is a Victorian romance set in the mid 1880's. The hero is a Manhattan stoneworker of Irish descent who improbably falls in love with a wealthy, shy spinster. In the future, I hope to write a romance set in "Old Dominion" Jamestown in the 1680's.

Like all writers, life itself is my biggest challenge. I wanted to have it all - home, children, grandchildren, teaching career - and this left little time for writing before I retired. I'm a late starter - but I've amassed many life experiences which, I hope, give depth to my characters.

My writing schedule is haphazard. My ideal use of time would be to write all night and sleep all day. Of course that doesn't work in the real world. Every now and then I make a reasonable and ambitious writing schedule. I work hard to follow it. Then I'm bumped out of bed by my undisciplined muse who whispers in my ear, "You won't remember this great idea in the morning. Get up right now and write!"

The next thing I know, the morning paper is being tossed against my front door - and I'm needing sleep. How can I find a better muse?