A Visit with Michelle Black

Michelle was a lawyer when she moved to Colorado's high country in 1993.Deciding to change careers, she bought a bookstore in the small town of Frisco, and wrote her first novel, Never Come Down. The story was set in an old mining ghost town and there were many where she lived. She's since written five addtional western historical novels. 

Michelle, why your intetrest in the Victorian West?

I define the Victorian West as the Old West from a woman’s perspective. I think I came to this genre out of a childhood frustration that the movies and TV shows I grew up with so rarely featured women as main characters and virtually never told stories from their point of view. When I first heard about the creation of a new group called Women Writing the West at a Colorado Gold Conference in 1994, I realized for the first time that I was not alone!

What is the Steampunk phenomenon?

The Steampunk phenomenon is my newest obsession! It’s so fun. Silly, fun and gorgeous to the eye. I learned of this subculture through my husband who is a voracious reader of  “cyberpunk” novels—authors like William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson. When these and other sci-fi authors started writing novels set in the Victorian age (rather than some dark, dystopian future) they coined the term Steampunk.  My husband thought my next novel, SÉANCE IN SEPIA, had Steampunk elements. It is more of a Gaslamp Mystery, but I like to think of it as “Steampunk adjacent.”

Steampunk, though, is a much broader phenomenon than just a literary subgenre and that is why I am so involved in it. It is an aesthetic which spreads into art, drama, home decor, fashion, and music. I recently wrote a feature article for True West Magazine on the topic of how the Steampunk movement is giving fans of the West—whether they enjoy its literature, art, or music—a whole new way to celebrate their interest.

Last November, I spoke at Steamcon, one of the largest Steampunk conventions in the country and the experience was amazing. Nearly 2,000 Steampunk lovers converged on Seattle for a three day party. Next year’s Steamcon will be the same weekend as the Women Writing the West Conference and I hope some folks will check out both.

I read your novels, Uncommon Enemy and its sequel Solomon Spring, and I'm impressed with your extensive research of the Washita Massacre. How much of the story is factual and how much is dramatized?

I extensively researched the Washita incident and tried to create an accurate picture of what happened there and its interesting political aftermath. My main character, Eden Murdoch, was a fictional creation, but she was inspired by a remark Custer made in his field notes about the Washita. He claimed they found the body of a white woman at the camp after the battle. Though this mystery woman was never identified nor ever mentioned by Custer again, she was used as “evidence” that Black Kettle’s band was “hostile” rather than peaceful, therefore justifying Custer’s attach on the sleeping village. His superiors, Sherman and Sheridan, defended the actions of the Seventh Cavalry based on this slender evidence when called before Congress during its investigation of the matter.

My fictional starting point became: what if the woman had been found alive and what if she told an entirely different story than the Army spin doctors wanted told?

How long does it usually take for you to research and write an historical novel?

I enjoy research and tend to research my novels far beyond what actually ends up in the story. I have been known to read an entire book and use the information gained to inform a single paragraph in the finished manuscript. Is this necessary? Probably not, but I love the research journey and can’t get enough.

I am very careful about what I say when using a real person in a fictional story. In an Uncommon Enemy, for example, all the “real” characters—Custer, Sheridan, Wynkoop—speak and act based on words they
actually said or opinions they actually expressed. I am proud to say that no one has ever criticized my fictional portrayals of real persons.

Now that Forge/Macmillan has cut back on its western historical line, what will become of Victorian West novels?

That’s a good question. I think if there is an audience, someone will step in to fill the void. With the rise in digital publishing, niche publishing becomes a viable economic model and small, independent presses are popping up everywhere so I am encouraged.

Who most influenced your own work and why?

When I was twelve, I read two novels that set the tone for all the books I would read and love the rest of my life: Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte and Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. I loved Bronte’s fierce and poetic prose and I loved Mitchell’s seamless integration of large historical events into a fictional narrative that was both entertaining and educational.

My friend, Larry Yoder, recently described historical fiction as “setting history to music so the truth can be heard.”  I love that description.

What's your writing schedule like?

I don’t really have one. I have always lacked discipline, I guess.

Advice to fledgling historical writers.

My best advice would be, you can never do too much research. Hopefully, a historical novelist loves research anyway or they would not have chosen this genre. I think the ultimate goal of all historical novelists is seamlessness—that the real and fictional characters blend and interact so well, a reader can’t tell them apart.

Thank you, Michelle.

You can visit Michelle's website and her blog site. She's also on Facebook and Twitter