Meet Tom Cat. He plays a rather important role in my novelette Carmela’s Outside, which is due to be published this year by Notebook Publishing.
Tom Cat has been nominated for Best Supporting Character in a Work of Fiction, and he is one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful Felines for 2018.*
I have lived with the cats Carmela, Anastasia, Raku, Tom Cat, Mozart, and Magritte—among other cats—for years. I watch them as they interact, and I can’t help but develop stories in my head about their lives. I hear their voices talking to each other in a Southern accent. At some point I began writing those stories down. Eventually they led to a short story that would not be content with that short-story status. So, I have a novelette. It will be the first of many works featuring the cats that I have known and loved.
With cats, just as with people, if I sit and watch I don’t know what is truly going on between them, so I take the body language and facial expressions and create lives for them myself. People watching isn’t just for people, and it’s the only way I can imagine writing fiction.
Stay tuned for more details about Carmela’s Outside. In the meantime, you can check out my Society 6 page for related artwork.
Thank you for stopping by.
*The second sentence is a work of fiction, in and of itself.