Category: Cat Editors

Meet author Susan DeFreitas, who writes with her feline muse Akira Kittysawa.

I’ve had many cat editors over the years, all of whom were kind enough to spare me the worst of their critiques. But perhaps I knew that, in order to get my first novel published, I was going to need a firmer editorial hand.

Enter Akira Kittysawa—a tiny, somewhat shy shelter cat who, within six months of being adopted, had grown into sturdy, assertive alpha feline who, despite having almost no voice, was adept at bending the two humans in the household to her will.

Named after the great movie director Akira Kurosawa, this cat pulled no punches on my novel. Unlike other cat editors, who would meow politely from the floor until invited to weigh in on the manuscript—and would graciously accept being ejected from the process when my editorial instincts ran counter to theirs—Akira (Kira for short) insisted on being intimately involved in the editing process every step of the way.

Her feedback was integral to turning Hot Season from a collection of linked stories from my grad school days into a full-fledged novel, and her determination to remain firmly seated on my lap—no matter how awkward this made typing—really gave me so much insight into some of my own characters, many of whom are just bound and determined to do some really inadvisable things.

For instance, my character Katie? She’s a freshman in college who wants to be an activist, and she’s decided to blow up the construction equipment of a developer that’s set to destroy a local river.

Her roommate Jenna, in her second semester, is determined to do something just as dumb, though probably less dangerous, in cheating on her long-term boyfriend with the hot new guy at school (though she does have suspicions that this new guy might be an undercover agent).

And their third roommate, Rell, may be older and wiser in many ways, but she just can’t seem to keep from trying to keep these girls from doing these dumb things they want to do—which, you might argue, is pretty dumb in an of itself.

All of these characters aren’t trying to cause conflict—they’re just being who they are. Just like Kira isn’t trying to cause conflict when she gnaws on my computer cord (just like she wasn’t trying to cause conflict when she destroyed the last one). She’s just a person who really needs other people to pay attention to her. (Unless she’s never seen them before; in that case, they are completely and utterly terrifying.)

My cat editor reminds me, at every turn, that people really can’t help being who they are—and the conflicts that result are, ultimately, what drive effective fiction.

She also reminds me that characters don’t really show us who they are until they are completely and utterly exasperated with each other.

Thanks, Kira!

An author, editor, and educator, Susan DeFreitas’s creative work has appeared in The Utne Reader, Story Magazine, Southwestern American Literature, and Weber—The Contemporary West, along with more than twenty other journals and anthologies. She is the author of the novel Hot Season (Harvard Square Editions, 2016) and a contributor at Litreactor.com. She holds an MFA from Pacific University and lives in Portland, Oregon, where she serves as a collaborative editor with Indigo Editing & Publications.

Author J. Bowers, whose story “Shooting a Mule” appears in the new Among Animals anthology from Ashland Creek Press, writes with two cat editors.

The first is “my” cat, Bama, a gregarious half-Siamese who was named by my husband after a character in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, though people who don’t know me well often assume that I must have some secret, inexplicable love for college football. Bama’s editing style is very paws-off. He’ll go under the desk and lace around my legs making this breathy purr, like a creepy phone caller. Really, he’s only after my swivel chair. It’s his favorite napping spot, and the office is off-limits to cats except when someone’s in here, so it’s a rare treat for him to spend some time “writing.”

Bama’s mackerel tabby brother, Roland (also named for a Dark Tower character), is helplessly devoted to my husband. But since I tend to write while he’s at work, Ro settles for hanging out with me. I write with a pillow in my lap to cushion my wrists, but he thinks it’s for cushioning him. He will yell at me until I let him jump up, then swat my hands if he thinks I’m doing too much typing and not enough scritching.

J. Bowers‘s fiction has appeared in The Indiana Review, StoryQuarterly, Redivider, The Portland Review, and other journals, and she is a contributor to Among Animals 2: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction. She is an assistant professor of English at Maryville University in St. Louis, MO. Visit her online at www.jbowers.org.

Author Anne Elliott, whose story “Strays” appears in the new Among Animals anthology from Ashland Creek Press, writes with three cats — six if you include the inspiration she has received from ferals in a colony in her Brooklyn neighborhood.

Angus is perhaps her best known cat; he has appeared on icanhas.cheezburger.com and has published a blog post. Of his editorial skills, Anne says:

Angus is the most senior of the three and wears many hats. He came from the rough streets of Brooklyn, where he was the feral cat that got picked on.  We discovered he liked laps very much, not to mention dogs, other cats, strangers, yarn — there is just about nothing this cat does not like. He had a crushed pelvis when we brought him in, which we did not figure out for at least a year, he was so good at hiding this old injury. But now he is healed, and his self-appointed job is to heal others and keep them company.  As for my writing, his job is keeping the other pets from bothering me by bothering them.  He is more of an editor-in-chief, managing office politics and getting involved where needed.

Ava is the middle one and also came from our backyard feral colony. She was a pregnant kitten when we brought her in.  Now she acts as a consultant in my writing program, helping by offering me yoga instruction. I don’t always keep up with her fitness program, but I do find that a little physical exertion helps me to keep my writing flowing.

Antonio is a real hands-on junior editor. It’s hard not to get distracted by his blue eyes and constant drooling when he sits on my lap to provide live critique while I compose. Once he settles down and stops chasing the cursor, work gets done. On the plus side, his comments are always supportive.  Occasionally he turns on the computer in my absence and types in edits on his own. He also acts as a teddy bear/dream consultant when I take a nap break.

I would be remiss not to include some of my favorite outdoor cats, part of our Brooklyn colony, and all bear the ear-tip mark. As editors, they remind me to be grateful and to let my mind run wild.

Anne Elliott is the author of The Beginning of the End of the Beginning, released by Ploughshares Solos in 2014. Her stories have also appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Witness, Hobart, Bellevue Literary Review, Fugue, r.kv.r.y, and others. Her story “Strays” appears in Among Animals 2: The Lives of Animals and Humans in Contemporary Short Fiction.

Author Lucy Jane Bledsoe has had several feline assistants during her writing years, all of whom, she says, “fulfilled their duties faithfully and diligently.” Her current two assistants, Scrunch and Parker, have proven to be a bit more challenging.

Scrunch, now retired now at 19 years old, relished her job as security guard, keeping the premises free of intruders and investigating each whisper of a sound. So well has the latter performed her duties that she’s become know as Scrunch the Magnificent.

So you can imagine my dismay at the behavior of my newest hire, Parker. She doesn’t bathe much, she attacks the elderly Scrunch regularly, and bites me – hard, breaking skin – when I annoy her. She’s also a drain on the full-service healthcare I provide: she’s been treated for a lengthy bout of ringworm, needs regular dental work already at age one, and has litter box habits that suggest digestive tract issues.

You might have guessed by now that her time on the job is less than productive. She tears up manuscripts, bats erasers into places where they can’t be retrieved, and, worst of all, chews the wires of all electronic equipment.

Sending her back to the wilds from whence she came, because of course she’s feral, has been discussed frequently in our household. Scrunch is all for it. However, we, the two human adults in residence, have fallen in love with her. Yes, we realize it’s become an abusive relationship. We do her bidding, and she torments us. Meanwhile, tending to her whims takes up about 50 percent of my day. I’m getting far too little writing done.

Advice is welcome. But we’ll probably ignore it.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s new novel, A Thin Bright Line, will be published at the end of the year. She’s the author of four other novels, a collection of short fiction, and one of narrative nonfiction, as well as several children’s books. Her recent short story, “Wolf,” won the Saturday Evening Post Fiction Prize. She’s also won a California Arts Council Award and two National Science Foundation Artists Fellowships, which have taken her to Antarctica three times.

If you’re a writer with a cat editor in your life and you’d like to share the joy, send me a note.

Mollie Hunt has three cat editors, all of whom have very distinctive roles in her writing life. Here are their stories, with their photos below:

Tinkerbelle, the 14-year-old lady, who up until recently worked as a therapy cat, is my prime editor. From her bed behind my monitor, she guides me with her vast kitty wisdom. Her eyes track inspiration, or is it a bird flitting by outside the window?

Little, 9, is more of an hands-on editor. If I become complacent, she brushes her velvet fur across my touchscreen, causing digital havoc. She insists herself into my lap where she purrs encouragement, no matter what I type.

Then there is Big Red. He does not help one bit with the writing, instead drawing me away from my work with sly cat distraction. “Wouldn’t you rather sit with me on the couch?” he mrrows. “Or better yet, fix a little snack for us?” Looking up at me with huge gold-green eyes, I am too easily tempted.

Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. She has published two of her Crazy Cat Lady mysteries, Cats’ Eyes and Copy Cats, and the third, Cat’s Paw,  will be out in early 2016. She has also written a non-cat mystery, Placid River Runs Deep, which delves into the challenge of Hepatitis C before the “cure. Mollie lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like her character, Lynley Cannon, she is a grateful shelter volunteer. Click here to learn more on Mollie’s blog.

If you’re a writer with a cat editor in your life and you’d like to share the joy, send me a note.