Author Jean Ryan writes with Tango, who obviously does a great job of keeping her author in the chair.
Of working with Tango, Jean says:
Tango does not want me to get too comfortable with my writing. She urges me to stay on the edge, to persevere through difficulty, to remember that the deepest truths are found outside my comfort zone.
Sumi usually sleeps in a chair next to mine as I work at the computer. Here he is, I think, expressing that mix of exhaustion, relief, and joy that comes from reaching the end of a manuscript.
Suzanne Kamata’s short stories, essays, articles, and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications, including Real Simple; Brain, Child; Cicada; and The Japan Times. Her poem “He’s More of a Dog Person” appears in Purrfect Poetry, an international anthology of poems that explore the quirkiness of our relationship with cats. Visit Suzanne’s website to learn more.
January 20 is Penguin Awareness Day. Why celebrate a day of penguin awareness, you may be wondering — and how?
There are 17 species of penguins throughout the world, and penguin awareness is important because these incredible birds face increasing threats every day, worldwide, from pollution to overfishing to climate change. Click here to learn about the most pressing threats to penguins and how you can help.
Another way to help penguins is through citizen science — visit Penguin Watch, and you can take part in ongoing Antarctic penguin research. You can help researchers by annotating images, without ever leaving your desk (though these amazing photos will make you feel as though you’ve traveled around the world).
Check out the Penguin Sentinels organization, a collaboration between the University of Washington, Global Penguin Society, Province of Chubut, and the La Regina family of Punta Tombo, Argentina, and is dedicated to research, conservation, and education. In addition to working at the Punta Tombo colony for more than 30 years, this group also does great work in the Galápagos Islands.
Learn about another penguin program at The Penguin Counters, which follows researchers on their Antarctic penguin-counting journeys.
And, if you’re crazy about penguins, check out the book Penguins: Natural History and Conservation, which offers an in-depth look at all 17 species of penguins and the challenges they face…and help ensure they’re around for generations to come.
And, a million thanks to Scribner for this delightful image of an Adelie penguin with MY LAST CONTINENT (which is about two penguin researchers working in Antarctica).
Lori Ostlund‘s two feline boys are watchful and helpful editors.
The boys came to us from the Goathouse Refuge, a cat shelter located in the forest outside of Chapel Hill, NC, where we were living for two years while I was the visiting writer at UNC. Prakash, the white boy with pink ears, has kept a careful distance when we work. In the photo below, he can be seen doing what he does: observing as I type. He isn’t supposed to be on the table, but he cuts a fine figure perched there on the corner nonetheless.
Oscar, the black-and-white boy, is far more assertive. He walks back and forth across the keys until I pick him up and cuddle him (exhibit 2). He has an amazing ability to step on the keys in such a way that a computer function that I previously had no knowledge of is suddenly revealed to me. Perhaps his greatest contribution occurred as I was reading through the first-pass edits for my novel, which were in PDF. Not knowing that I could make notes on the PDF, I was writing on a pad of paper when Oscar, rushing to attack the pen, stepped on the keyboard in such a way that a PDF Post-it popped onto the screen, thus cutting my editing time in half.
Lori Ostlund is the author of the story collection The Bigness of the World (to be reissued by Scribner in 2016), which won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the 2009 California Book Award for First Fiction. Her novel, After the Parade, was released by Scribner in September of 2015 and is on the shortlist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and is a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.
Melissa Clark writes with her fourteen-year-old rescue cat, Percy.
Percy (Persephone) has been with me through three and a half novels, and even inspired novel number two, Imperfect, about a girl who purrs like a cat. She likes to get her paws all over my manuscripts, as you can see. She is a Siamese mix and always has a lot to say, as if my inner-critic isn’t loud enough.
Melissa Clark is an author, television writer, and college instructor whose novels include Bear Witness, Swimming Upstream, Slowly, and Imperfect. She is the creator of the animated television series Braceface, starring the voice of Alicia Silverstone, and has written scripts for Rolie Polie Olie, Totally Spies, Sweet Valley High, and others. Learn more by visiting Melissa’s website.
If you’re a writer with a cat editor in your life and you’d like to share the joy, send me a note.
Write about something you lost this year (an item, a relationship, a belief), and aim to write about it for several pages. Next, write about the best thing that happened to you this year, again for several pages.
A new study from University of Pennsylvania researchers has found that Antarctic lake deposits have remained frozen for at least the last 14 million years — which suggests that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet has also remained intact.
If the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, or EAIS, didn’t experience significant melting during the Pliocene (a period from 3 to 5 million years ago, when carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to what they are today), this offers new hope that perhaps the continent won’t melt away, as many fear it eventually could.
Current climate change projections indicate that the marine portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is “a goner,” [Jane] Willenbring said. Studies from the past few years suggest that sea level will likely rise a few meters as that ice melts. But the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is 20 times more massive. If it melted, the ensuing sea level rise would be even more catastrophic than the western peninsula’s dissolution.
However, while this study offers hope that a massive collapse of the ice sheet, and the subsequent sea level rise, may not be imminent, the differences between the Pliocene and the rapid warming of today’s climate are great enough that it’s impossible to draw any definitive conclusions. As Willenbring says,”we’ve probably never experienced such a fast transition to warm temperatures as we’re seeing right now.”
True to her calico nature, Camille is a one-person cat. She gets along perfectly well with my husband, but she clings to me. When I write at my standing desk, she’s draped over my feet; if the Mac is propped up in my lap, Camille competes for space on my legs or wends herself around my shoulders to chew on my hair. My 13-pound muse.
Julie Christine Johnson is the author of In Another Life, forthcoming from Sourcebooks in February of 2016, and The Crows of Beara, coming from Ashland Creek Press in 2017. Click here to visit Julie’s website and to stay up-to-date on her forthcoming books!
Are you a writer with a cat editor in your life? If you’d like to share your story, send me a note.
This video, with gorgeous images of Adélie penguins and their chicks on the Antarctic peninsula, is one of the best calls to action I’ve seen for a planet in peril due to climate change.
Excerpted from James McClintock’s Lost Antarctica and narrated by Harrison Ford (member of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation (EOWBF) Board of Advisors), this brief video shows how the amazing Adélie penguin is being threatened by real-time environmental changes.
Over the last six decades, scientists have observed an average increase of 2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade in the Antarctic peninsula. These warming temperatures lead to increasing humidity, which leads to unseasonable snow. This video shows Adélies trying to keep their eggs incubated despite being buried in snow.
What sort of a world will future generations of Antarctic scientists find when they come to this remarkable place? When they gaze over this landscape, will they be reminded how this place, this peninsula, these ecosystems, served as a wake-up call…?
Climate change isn’t an abstract, faraway notion. It’s happening before our eyes, chick by chick.
Learn more, and help, by visiting such organizations as Oceanites and the Center for Penguins as Ocean Sentinels, which look at our changing planet through the animals that are showing us the effects of climate change.
Julia Park Tracey‘s Ophelia (also known as Fifi, Stinky, Princess, and Pooper) is very hands-on.
Lady Ophelia is my Mews. She’s black and white like a newspaper, so her coloring reminds me of my writing work every day. She is chief office assistant, sitting on top of whatever is most important for me right that instant. She also enjoys my lap and the left-hand side of my desk where the to-do list is sitting. Unfortunately, she’s a drooler and occasional biter. She enjoys a bird or cat video, but dog videos annoy her. Open windows are the best kind. A different flavor of cat food every day means I must meet deadlines to make her happy.
Author Mindy Mejia lives and writes with a cat named Dusty.
On working with Dusty, Mindy says:
Dusty’s main editorial talents lie in encouragement and prioritization. He usually lounges on the table or in my lap, purring his approval at whatever scene I’m working on, and if I start daydreaming he’ll jump directly on top of the computer or manuscript (see picture) as if to say, “Oh, you’ve got better things to do than write? I guess I’ll just make this my new bed.” It never fails to refocus my energy, which I’m sure is his intent.
Mindy Mejia is the author of The Dragon Keeper (Ashland Creek Press, 2012) and the novel EVERYTHING YOU WANT ME TO BE, forthcoming from Emily Bestler Books in 2016. Visit Mindy’s website and stay tuned for more news on the release of her new book!
Are you a writer with a cat editor in your life? If you’d like to share your story, send me a note.
Today I’m delighted to introduce you to Judy Reeves and the late, great Rumi.
Here’s what Judy has to say about her lovely Rumi:
I’ve been told by other editors that I need to get more conflict and tension in my stories, but Rumi really does a “show, don’t tell” by falling asleep on my pages. Here’s what he did for me as a writer: reminded me to get up and move away from the computer sometimes. I believe he was telling me that I could get a different perspective if I’d have a little snack, or take just a tiny nap. He also reminded me not to take myself too seriously, and mostly, I think, helped me keep an open heart.
As any writer knows, writing challenges us in so many ways. And, as any writer with a cat knows, writing can be even more challenging when our felines try to get in on the action. Which they inevitably do. And there’s no talking them out of it.
Yet while we may first think that they are getting in the way, these feline editors do, in fact, have something to teach us. Maybe they’re here (on our stuff) to remind us that good creative work requires the occasional break. Maybe they curl up in our laps just when we need to stay in the chair. Or maybe they simply make us laugh and remind us not to take our writing lives too seriously.
In honor of these dedicated yet unsung heroes (as they would surely put it), I’ve decided to celebrate our cat editors with a blog series.
To begin, I’ll introduce Theo.
Theo has been on my desk (or my laptop, or my papers, or my lap) for more than 14 years of creative writing.
In fact, I can’t think of a single project over these 14 years that hasn’t been overseen (often quite obsessively) by Theo.
He can’t seem to resist being near books (and warm computers), and he’ll also steal your pens (which are better than any cat toy we’ve tried to entice him with). He even likes to hang out among our vintage typewriters.
Of course, I’m far from alone in having a feline writing companion, and I look forward to sharing the stories and photos of many other writers and their feline collaborators. And, if you’re a writer with a cat editor in your life and would like to share your stories and photos, please feel free to send me a note!
