Born in New York, raised in Toronto, Jill Culiner has lived in England, Holland, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Hungary, keeping body and soul together by delivering newspapers, belly dancing, translating, tour guiding and a great many other tedious jobs. She presently resides in a small French village, similar to the not very pleasant one presented in her mystery, Slanderous Tongue. For her non-fiction work, Finding Home in the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers, she crossed Romania on foot tracing the path of immigrants bound for North America at the end of the 19th century. The book won the Tannenbaum Prize for Canadian Jewish History in 2005 and was short-listed for the ForeWord magazine prize. As a photographer, her exhibition concerning the First and Second World Wars, La Mémoire Effacée, has toured France, Canada and Hungary under the auspices of UNESCO and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As an artist/creator of social critical objects, her work has been exhibited throughout France and Germany, in Spain, England, Switzerland and Poland. It now fills La Boule d’Or, a former café/hotel transformed into a peculiar mini museum open to the public. Its wild garden (much to the distress of close neighbours) is a reserve for birds, butterflies, insects and reptiles. She has spoken to genealogical and historical groups throughout the United States and Canada, has worked as a broadcaster for Radio France. An amateur musician (flute, piccolo, oboe, oboe d’amore, English horn) she plays in several orchestras and chamber groups.