"But I do not regret protecting his identity, even if it meant that my article appeared only online. The point was a major magazine printed it online. I was and am still ecstatic for that exposure and experience," she said.
Quarterly Editor
That she became a witness, first unwillingly, to another person's sexual harassment case was "the beginning of the end to a career I loved," she said. She quit the job in government controlled mental health services last September after she won a federal right to sue notice, but opted initially to stay in the same job with a written settlement in place prohibiting two bosses or any one on their behalf from retaliating or harassing her.
As a favor to her real-life lawyer friend about whom "Liars Among Us" is based, Cafini spoke to his law students about her experiences, during which she played an unrelated tape recording of a voice mail that she was leaving for a media friend which captured a boss ignoring the writer's demand not to take her photo that later was hung in a bar. During the presentation to the class, laughter and heckling followed when Cafini showed actual hardcopy and email from the bosses, government HR staff and government elected officials to her about her case.
"It was then that I felt angry and began to register and file the federal complaint. That all those law students, lawyers and professors laughed at what they called total stupidity on the part of the employer made the writer lose hope of regaining enough professional respect back for them to continue to work for them.
The class of future lawyers was so intrigued, she returned again two weeks later. Her second presentation was filmed and is now part of official class training at two prestigious schools in employment law. In lieu of payment for speaking, she asked the school to fund three separate lie detector tests for her which she passed. Documentation of those results and copies of her written offer in grievances to fund similar tests for either or both of the two bosses is included in the film.
On a typical day at her website, she answers questions about Pittsburgh rock and blues, Autism, fiction she writes and those work related issues. Her gutsy opinions drew the attention of a large newspaper publisher, interested in having her move the Rants column to its daily hard copy, but not its online publication.
"Newspapers are losing money because everyone's reading online at no charge," Cafini said. She rejects the offer unless there is online publication so that she can print a link to the newspaper from her site.
For lady writer Julie "Juls" Cafini, work was being a government disabilities coordinator. Work meant also writing sometimes for two newspapers and writing Brit favorite fiction stories such as "McGregor" and "Kids From Nowhere," stories which led even a few stuffy ol blokes in University Lit to whisper that she's not Shakespeare but, yes, they would fancy reading more.
In 2006, Cafini became the first American in two decades to have work included in the offbeat Quarterly publication. She has had one to four stories included in each publication to date and was included in each of the last two year-end hard back publications. She is one of the six female writers whose work found its place in the past decade into the traditionally male-dominated showcase of writers. Insiders say that this American helped save the publication and renew interest in it here.
Last year, when Cafini was contacted for an interview and reaction to being named one of London's favorite new writers, she hung up on the writer, believing the call to be a prank.
"Yes, that's true," she confirmed. "Then the nice gentleman phoned back an hour later while I was in the shower, and my son told him he's not allowed to talk to strangers and hung upon him."
The third time the publication writer phoned, it was 3 AM in Pennsylvania, US, when Cafini answered from a deep sleep. She saw the foreign number on her caller display and wrongly mistook the publication writer for a male admirer whose work was based in Europe.
"Sometimes he called that late" she said, "and sometimes I fell back to sleep on him, too," she said of the charming American living in Europe and the publication writer who hung up when she fell asleep without his interview.
"I learned that my work was going to be included in the year review hard copy that first time when Verne called back, fortunately, for the fourth persistent time" for the interview Cafini said she later discovered was published in its entirety in the hard back copy of the annual publication only when someone photo copied the pages and mailed them to her.
Friends she made in Europe sent congratulatory notes to make sure that she knew that having an artist interview published along with several fictional stories was a rare honor included in only a handful of year review hard back books for four other living writers, previously all male.
In the meantime, Cafini is enjoying more spare time to be with her family and to do things she could not do working full time. She lives minutes from the beautiful Laurel Highlands mountain area of rural Pennsylvania, home to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob architectural wonders and a few mountain state parks. In the opposite direction, she lives about 40 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh as well.
The writer who is a rare Yank to be accepted so warmly by the Brits takes success and fame in stride. She lives a regular life with no real peculiarities and none of the ego that trap some writers into believing they are bigger in life than the characters they create.
"Alan Ginsberg once told a group of us in a small town restaurant that we lose our ability to write well when our egos get larger than the popularity of our least and most famous characters we created or a poem or story we wrote. I'm unsure if he were talking from personal experience, but I remembered him saying those words as clearly today as I did almost 30 years ago.
"If I can write well, it's because I have a talent that God gave me to use. I don't lose sight of that and know that tomorrow or next year or at any point that I could just as quickly fade away. That's fine if it happens, but right now I am enjoying being made to feel so lucky and received so warmly by people who don't just say they like a story, but tell me what it means to them. "
True to form, Cafini has scored again by having her work included for the eighth consecutive time in Quarterly, due out next month.
Except that she lives across the ocean away and cannot grab a copy herself before the coveted piles of the magazine disappear from the twenty public drop sites, Cafini has nothing but appreciation and praise for the attention she receives as a writer from the Collections' publishers and from readers who have made her website and pages on other sites some of the most heavily read pieces of fiction being written today. Brits love the Yank who crossed the gender line and ocean to take her place in what is still otherwise a largely closed set for foreigners and women.
"If you believe that they still think Juls is a male, then maybe we shouldn't write this article or include my picture," she joked before the interview concluded.
Rest assured, Lady Wordsmith. The stuffed shirts know.
"After "McGregor" was so well received, I thought that was beginner's luck," she said, "so I was speechless when "The Village Idiot" quickly was read by over 150,000 people the day it was published." To wake up with usually a few emails from friends overnight to having 8,000 messages sent was overwhelming and humbling for her.
For readers to track down all of her work is not an easy task. She publishes sometimes initially on a few Collections supported websites and sometimes exclusively on her own website in America.
"A friend got me the name of the web domain using my married name as a gift," she said. When he passed away, she said she started the site with "McGregor" and "Ace In A Hole," a story about the gift giver.
She confirms speculation that she writes under other pen names as well, but leaves that to the reader's imagination. While she keeps on writing fiction such as "The Comedian," A Single Man," "The Writer" and "Secret Passage Way" that Brits embrace, she writes gratis for a few parent-support groups for children with disabilities and works as a freelance writer for entertainment stories for her hometown paper and general human interest stories for a large Pittsburgh paper. The entertainment stories are done as favors to musician friends.
Two short pieces that she wrote, "Valentine Flowers" and "Something For Dad," were featured for publication six times annually each on mns two consecutive years in February and June for Valentine's Day and Father's Day.
One story about her true experiences with Internet dating, "In The Land of Misfits, Mismatches and Perfect Fits," ran on a major magazine's website, but did not publish in the hard copy when she refused to submit her initial contacts with one man within the dating service's email screens.
Disclosure would have revealed the actual identity of one well-known married writer who posted a dating profile and won her respect and loyalty.