What prompted the author to write this story? How much research did she do? Did she interview any cats or rats before writing this book? Does she find children’s fiction easier or more challenging to write than fiction for adults? How can her fans keep up with what she is working on?
NOTE: This interview was originally published by me in December 2013 on The News in Books.
“In life, always keep an open mind” is the moral of this story. Was there a particular incident that prompted you to write this story?
No—although the proliferation of acts of violence in the schools would certainly mitigate for a “throwback” book that teaches children (and adults, hopefully) to behave in more socially acceptable ways. The book also encourages children (and adults) to be helpful and kind.
Are you the proud owner of any cats or rats that you based the characters of the cats and the rats in the story on?
I am currently the proud owner of Lucy, a 17 lb. black-and-white stray cat. Or, more accurately, she is the proud owner of my husband and me. She adopted us from our ravine. I have to take her to the veterinarian tomorrow for updated shots and because she has been peeing in her master’s slippers, which has not been popular. At the time Lucy took us in, we already had a cat named Kitty Kelley. They did not get along, which is reflected in the first book’s prose and illustrations. (The Christmas Cats in Silly Hats) “They fight through screens, they both act mean.”
I have never owned rats, but I have owned gerbils and hamsters.
I conducted a science experiment in high school involving nutrition with two hamsters, Nixon and Kennedy. One hamster would eat healthy food and, hopefully, live well and prosper. The other would eat junk food—sort of like the documentary “Supersize This.”
Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, one of the hamsters had a broken leg when we purchased it. He proceeded to eat his leg, ahead of the gangrene, I’ve been told. This did not help my nutrition experiment. We first realized something was wrong when we saw traces of blood in the cage overnight. We had to take Nixon (the one with the broken leg) back to the pet store. You might say he resigned from office under a cloud.
After that, I abandoned the nutrition experiment and tried to teach Kennedy to run a maze using treats as incentives, which Kennedy learned to do pretty well. He really liked the cheese, and he seemed pretty smart. Except, when bells went off during the period in Andy Anderson’s biology class where Kennedy had to show his stuff, Kennedy wasn’t as willing to perform. He just sat there, frozen with fear. I don’t think I got a very good grade on that science experiment, but it did put me in close proximity to rodents for a fairly long time, so I feel qualified to write about them. Not an expert, mind you, but a longstanding familiarity with their unique personalities. (Kennedy would squeak as soon as he heard the refrigerator door open; he knew that meant food.)
My experience(s) with rodents, while less than spectacular, were not as bad as my cousin Lois’s, however. Her hamsters got loose from their exercise wheel and cage and fell into the heating ducts of their big old house in Webster Groves, Missouri. [Took them a while to figure out what that odd smell was]. I do know that Ava wants a gerbil or a hamster for Christmas.
In the past, I have also owned Sam, a Siamese cat with papers that hid in a woodpile for days; Nucomb, my very first all-black kitty; Fraidy, a calico cat who hid behind the furnace for much of her life; Bunky, the Psychotic Wonder Cat; and Kitty Kelley, who lived to be almost 20. There were also—very briefly—Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Beane—but that “cat lady” experiment did not last long. Sometimes, college habits tend to best be left behind when you graduate. Nearly all of my cats in the past thirty years were identical calico cats. Yet each was very different from the preceding cat and they all had distinct personalities.
One of my cats, Fraidy, died of feline leukemia before there was a vaccine for it. She hated everyone but me. Another had a urinary tract infection that seemed untreatable (Bunky). Bunky was my only male cat and the most destructive animal I’ve ever owned. Most of my cats have been females, because they tend to be more loving and they like to “groom” you by licking your hands. I like cats. That doesn’t mean I don’t like dogs (In childhood, I also had a black Labrador Retriever), but cats are more practical as pets. You don’t have to walk them in cold Midwestern winters, and they are very clean animals. Plus, with the new fancy litter boxes, the odors and other unpleasant aspects are minimized. I had one of the first automatic cat boxes. Tom Snyder demonstrated one on his late-night talk show, and I had already bought one and had it for months.
I still think it’s wrong to pre-judge an animal or a person based on stereotypes. I’m sure there are many snakes, spiders, centipedes and rats that are perfectly nice as pets, if you give them a chance to prove their true character to you, based on up-close-and-personal real-life experience.
I don’t think it is a good thing to be judgmental and mean towards others, whether those others are animals or humans. The epidemic of bullying in schools, especially cyber-bullying, is a good reason to continue a series like the Christmas Cats series. I’ve been the object of mean-spirited ostracism and bullying in pre-cyber days. I can testify firsthand that it can make your entire life miserable to be the object of a “clique’s” attempts to punish you by “shunning” you in some way. That is what the Amish call it; it’s an age-old practice, and not a nice one.
Sometimes, the people doing the shunning do it to make themselves feel more important, simply because “they can.” Sometimes, they are jealous of the person they are attacking. Sometimes, it is simply because the person is just slightly different or is new in a school or town. The reasons never justify the action(s).
Was there any research required to write this story? For instance, did you visit a research laboratory? Did you interview any cats or rats that work in these places?
First, let me direct you to this bit of YouTube film where I am interviewing my cat (Kitty Kelley) about the outcome of the 2008 presidential election. It’s up on YouTube under Connie Corcoran Wilson. So, yes, I have interviewed a cat. This was taken March 18 of 2008. I don’t think anyone has watched it, so let’s see if any of you go to the Internet to see me talking to Kitty Kelley about who will win the election. It’s pretty funny and no one can say I haven’t tried to communicate with cats, or just started to capitalize on cats for these children’s books, because this film is 6 years old and my first cat book only came out in 2011, four years after this film was shot.
Let me hasten to add, I certainly do not expect my cat to start speaking in standard English (remark aimed at the Curious George Lady.) The cat in the clip “meows” words, like the cats of my story, and I interpret, as I have done onscreen in this clip.
I considered having myself locked up in a research laboratory cage, but the laboratory doctors weren’t wild about the idea. I had a lot of demands. Cable. HBO. Cinemax. Diet Dr. Pepper. Plus, I was too big to fit in the cage.
I also would like to point out to the Curious George person, who objected to “animals talking” in that story because children would think that monkeys can talk, that in Book One, it says, “They meow words.” So, the “talking” in my books, anyway, is strictly species-appropriate. Nowhere is there a speech balloon, although there might be one that attempts to tell what the cats or rats are thinking.
Also, Curious George Lady hates Curious George. And cartoons. And movies where animals talk. Yes, rats are nocturnal animals, but who can resist a rat in a two-piece bikini on a beach? (Illustration from Book Two). This is not a documentary. This is a children’s illustrated book meant to encourage good behaviour in children and adults, as books used to do before they were written about flying pot roasts and boogers and farts.
I have visited a research laboratory during VEISHA, [which those in the state of Iowa will know stands for Veterinary, Electrical, Industrial, etc. etc. and other engineering areas and pertains to Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.] Our band toured such a facility when we were there to march in the VEISHA parade.
Carl Wathan (RIP), one of my classmates and one of our band members (he played piccolo and flute), felt sorry for one of the white rats in a cancer study in that lab in Ames. He felt so bad about the rat’s participation in the cancer study that he kidnapped it, “liberating” it, smuggling it out and taking it back home on the bus. He named it Ramona. That’s why I mention in Book Two that the cats are going to return to make sure that the rats are “happy, glad and free.” Nobody wants the rats to be happy more than the Christmas Cats, who became great friends with the rats of the story.
Whatever became of the study Ramona was involved in at Ames (Iowa State University)? Or of Ramona herself? No idea. I support the right of all rodents, marsupials, invertebrates and animals of all kinds to live happy, healthy lives. I do realize that research can sometimes be inhumane, but you can assume that the Christmas Cats would not allow the Green Laboratory doctors to mistreat their friends the white rats, rodents that they have come to know so well. That’s why it specifically mentions that the cats will be revisiting the Green Experimental Lab to check on the rats. These rats are not being mistreated. They are brave little soldiers who are helping cure disease in mankind, because they are very nice, smart rats who want to contribute, but they are not being mistreated or having any life-threatening diseases induced. Maybe they’re going to help stem the tide of adolescent obesity and diabetes? Lady who objects to testing on animals: there are tests and then there are tests. Not ALL testing is inhumane and horrible. You can assume that the rats in this story are being well-treated. If they aren’t treated right, the Christmas Cats will come back and there will be a day of reckoning. (Could be a good new story theme, right?)
Carl Wathan was one of the smartest, gentlest, and most compassionate people I ever met. He sat in the woodwind section (I played oboe.) Carl always used to say, “Judge not, lest ye also be judged,” which also applies to this story.
I lost track of Carl after high school, but I’ve been told he committed suicide in Iowa City, Iowa, at University Hospitals, where he was a male nurse. He used the same chemicals that are used for executions, inserting IV lines while lying on a gurney. When I heard about Carl’s death, it made me very sad. He was a very sensitive young man in an insensitive world.
It is this dark side of life that I also write about in my adult works, which have been compared to Stephen King, Philip K Dick, and Dean Koontz.
These sorts of life experiences are one reason I go back and forth, writing a pleasant, positive work like The Christmas Cats series for children and then writing a dark adult novel series like The Color of Evil or the short story series Hellfire & Damnation.
I actually wrote a book in 2003 entitled Both Sides Now. It caused one good girlfriend to ask me about bi-polarity, since it went back and forth between humor and pathos, but isn’t that what happens in real life?
No, I’m not bi-polar, but my agent is, so I’m not making light of that affliction.
The world is a less compassionate, less kind place without the Carl(s) of life; I wanted to write a children’s story that would encourage others of all ages to be kind, compassionate, fair-minded and tolerant. In Book One, the lesson is that one must learn to cooperate with others to be successful in life. Book Three (The Christmas Cats Encounter Bats) will have a good moral lesson, also, but you’ll have to wait till next Christmas season to find out what it is.
Why do the Christmas Cats wear Silly Hats?
I could give the short answer and say, “Why not?”
The lengthier answer is that Andy (Andrew Weinert) and I thought it would be fun to put cats in various fancy and ridiculous chapeaus. We even put the twins’ real cat, Curby, in a chicken comb hat recently. Andy’s dad is a fireman in East Moline, Illinois, so there is one fireman cat in the books and Andy has a great, creative, humorous spirit and is very talented, so he did a great job of coming up with other hats for the cats to wear—especially since he was only about 16 at the time. I guess the Christmas Cats are just “crazy cats” who, as it says in Book One, like to dress up in silly hats. [Buy Book One and you’ll find a reference to this fetish the cats have for wearing silly hats.]
Actually, if you order Book Two from the website (www.TheXmasCats.com), I’ll autograph both (giving you Book One as a freebie because you read all of this and went out to the Internet to watch those clips, right?) and send them both out in time for Christmas. It will cost you $18, total, using the PayPal button on the site. It’s $14.95 for the book and the rest is postage, but the books come autographed any way you want them. Just give me your address and how you want it autographed.
What do you find the differences are in writing children’s fiction rather than adult fiction?
I’ve written four novels. I worked long and hard to make them as error-free and good as I could. I had editors and beta readers and researchers and lay-out artists and website people and trailer makers, and I tried to make each book a riveting page-turner with a cliff-hanger ending. (The second in The Color of Evil series, just won a competition as a “Pageturner” novel of 2013 and is featured in the “Shelf Unbound” online magazine this month, in fact, and won a Pinnacle award in the Thriller category for spring, 2013).
The difficult part about writing a children’s book is thinking like a child again. That is why I am glad I have my four-year-old twin granddaughters to help me. And, of course, these books rhyme, and that can take a little longer than prose (although I doubt Shakespeare has anything to fear). They’re more like Dr. Seuss than Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The illustrator is the “key” to a superior children’s illustrated book. I was very fortunate to find such talented illustrators. I am especially indebted to Gary McClusky, who helped me out with The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats. I would have liked to go forward with Andy Weinert. [If he reads this, maybe he’ll let me know if he will ever be available again.] His availability was severely limited by his studies at the Northern Illinois University where he was getting an advanced degree in graphic arts while I was putting Book #2 together. That, plus the loss of ALL of his drawings by the publishing house made Book One into a process that took nearly 7 years from start to finish. It was like Bela Lugosi’s last film, where he died mid-movie and they had to finish it with the director’s wife’s hairdresser and photograph the hairdresser only from the back. (Ha!)
If you want to hear me speak about this, here’s another link from an interview done one day ago (also up on YouTube) with Ricky Shetty of Canada (Daddy Blogger).
I’ll be on Cyrus Webb’s “Conversations with Authors” show on Wednesday, Dec. 4th at 6:30 p.m. (ET) (www.blogtalkradio.com/cyruswebbpresents).
I’m excited to talk with Cyrus again. He interviewed me regarding The Color of Evil when it came out. And, if you live anywhere near Dubuque, Laura of QueenBRadio is supposed to interview me next Monday at 2:30 p.m. CDT.
Is children’s fiction easier or more challenging to write than fiction for adults?
It’s challenging in a different way. I’m not sure that I’d use the term “easier.” It is a different skill set, just as it is a different skill set to interview someone, versus writing a scholarly book (like my 1989 book for PLS, Training the Teacher As A Champion, which had to have MLB footnotes) or writing a review of a film or book, or writing a feature story or writing a screenplay. It’s been fun pushing the envelope trying to write so many different literary forms, but I have to say that writing a screenplay is not something I am wild about doing again. (But never say never.) And I’m not done experimenting yet.
When it comes to writing children’s fiction, who has been your biggest inspiration?
The inspiration for my Christmas Cats books are my granddaughters. The first book began to become a book in 2003. The girls were not born until 2009. It was making this present for them, for Christmas, and making sure that they would learn to write by helping me write future books, that propelled me through a lot of difficulties in order to create both Christmas Cats books.
And, of course, there’s good old Dr. Seuss. When we were in Australia and New Zealand last January and February, there was an exhibit of Theodore Geisel’s other artwork in a museum. I was very interested in his other art, because I never thought his drawings were that great, but I loved the books for their rhyming and alliteration and interesting ideas. I’ve always been a fan of Oh, the Places You’ll Go. Books like Green Eggs and Ham and Hop on Pop are excellent tools for beginning readers, with all the repetition of easy words. Same way with One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. (And, remember, I owned and operated a Sylvan Learning Center for close to 20 years, so reading improvement and teaching reading is as much a part of my background as writing, which I’ve been paid to do for 58 years).
Have you had a lot of positive feedback for your children’s books?
Yes, I have. It’s an easier sell than “dark.” But I refuse to be pigeon-holed so that I have to write just one thing. I want to try it all. Isn’t that what life is all about? New experiences? Accepting new challenges?
Plus, I want my granddaughters to learn to write well, and I know I can teach them. I hope they want to learn what I know I can help them learn. So far, I think they are receptive.
I hope I get to go to their school (St. Mary’s on Michigan Avenue in Chicago) to read the books to their classes; I’m very excited about that possibility. Ava said she was in the Kangaroo room and Elise was in the Caterpillar room. (Ava wants to be in any room that has to do with bugs, snakes and creepy crawly things, so this is probably a mismatch.)
I used to participate in a statewide speech Iowa that had a category called “Storytelling.” I did Humorous Declamation, Dramatic Declamation, Original Oratory and there was even a category called Radio Speaking, which came in handy when I had 2 radio shows in my adult years, one “live” and one taped. I remember going to my mother’s kindergarten classes (she taught for 40 years) and reading The Velveteen Rabbit to practice for the Storytelling category competition. It’s challenging to keep the attention of a class of little people, but I’ve had some practice doing it, including 33 years in classrooms.
Do your granddaughters give you ideas of what they would like the stories to be about?
Ava and Elise are very involved in the writing process. We sat down in the kitchen at their child-sized table right after Halloween to write next year’s book. Since they’re only four, they aren’t actually “writing” yet, but we all suggested animals that the Christmas Cats might interact with in next year’s book. Ava wanted pigs. Elise wanted bats. I suggested deer.
So, we had a “draw-off” and each of us drew our animal. Ava’s pigs had very long ears, which made them resemble rabbits. My deer was very bad—probably the worst of the three. Elise—who is very smart—looked around the kitchen where we were working and saw a cut-out of a bat on the window that her mother had placed there for Halloween. She took it down and traced around it and then colored it very nicely. I plan to use her drawing, as is, in the next book.
I have to say that Elise “won” but Ava quickly pointed out that “bats rhymes with cats,” which is pretty good thinking for a 4-year-old. So, bats won.
So, yes, the girls definitely have input now and will have more input as the years go by. Right now, Elise cuts up little pieces of paper, scribbles or draws something on them, and then staples them. She brings them to you and says, “Here is my new book.” (Picture me smiling like a proud Nanna’ Connie, as they call me). We have to differentiate between their 95-year-old Great Grandmother Wilson, so I’m “Nanna’ Connie.”
What can we look forward to in future books from this series? Are you working on another one now? When can we look for it to be released?
The new book is in the illustrator’s hands now. It is entitled The Christmas Cats Encounter Bats. (Elise won the draw-off.). It will be out for next Christmas, and I’m learning that Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year. [I think Thanksgiving has been given the shaft, to be honest.] I hope to see a rough draft by August. (Gary, if you’re reading this, take note.)
How can your fans keep up with what you are working on?
My one confused fan, (who doesn’t know WHAT I write, for sure, probably…ha) can check out www.WeeklyWilson.com, my blog, and can also check out www.ConnieCWilson.com and my Facebook page as Connie Corcoran Wilson. I’ve been told I need to create a Facebook page expressly for the Christmas Cats series, which does have a dedicated website at www.TheXmasCats.com. I’ll probably get around to that. We are going to “revamp” my author website soon.
I also twitter as Connie Wilson Author and I have a Pinterest page as Connie Corcoran Wilson. My next novel, third in The Color of Evil series, is Khaki=Killer and will be out in February, but it’s a far cry from the Christmas Cats. I’m also half through with Hellfire & Damnation III, which is a short story series. (I have 5 stories yet to write).
Of course, there’s no guarantee that I won’t take on writing another nonfiction book about another decade in film, since I have a book entitled It Came from the 70s: From the Godfather to Apocalypse Now from my years of reviewing for the Quad City Times. In 2003, I set out to prove I could write “one of everything.” I’m closing in for the figurative kill. Or the literal kill, if Pogo, the nefarious clown, gets his hands on Tad McGreevy of that series—the boy who “sees” auras and dreams of the crimes of the evil-doers at night— which has won a Pinnacle award (Thriller category), a Silver Feather, E-Lit awards— then it may be more of a literal crime. I log-line COE as “Carrie-meets-The Fury-meets-TV’s-The Medium.”
The original book (The Color of Evil), which is the title of the series, was among the top 10 in the YA category for a Stoker, but I’ve moved on to thriller territory.
I’ll probably try my hand at some other writing form that I haven’t attempted yet (Mystery? More nonfiction?) I’ve done a science fiction novel, three volumes of ghost stories/folktales collected along Route 66, three thriller novels in the series The Color of Evil, two books in a short story series organized around Dante’s Inferno and the 9 Circles of Hell, two books of humor, the movie book, one screenplay that was a “Writer’s Digest” winner (based on the science fiction novel Out of Time), one scholarly book about teaching and the two children’s books. I’m up for trying anything but erotica or romance—although someone might talk me into that, if I were to be told I couldn’t do it. The surest way to get me to attempt to do something is to tell me I can’t do it. Then I feel like I at least have to try. Probably stems from my early years as a singer of no particular note.
I read music and I was a very serviceable alto, but I am not a soloist. In the contest years in my Iowa school(s), you could only enter so many students in a certain category, like 1st Sopranos, 1st Altos, etc. I think you could only send 2 or 3 per school. I wasn’t good enough to be picked to be a soloist, apparently, although I could always be depended upon to lead the harmony in the alto section, because I had years and years of piano lessons.
So, I wasn’t picked to be one of the two or three soloists. I don’t remember who was, but I do know that one of the chosen ones couldn’t perform because of illness. Our choir teacher, (Eugene McKinley) who was very good, approached me to substitute for Candy Hatfield or whoever it was that couldn’t compete that year.
Just before I entered the room where the judges would sit in judgment of my vocal stylings, Mr. McKinley said to me, “You probably have the least natural vocal talent of anyone here.”
I remember thinking, to myself, “I’m going to go in there and sing the hell out of this song.”
The solo was a Negro Spiritual Folk Song that had interspersed spoken dialect, which the instructor had told me to omit when I actually performed the song. Sometimes, when we were practicing—which I only had a few days to do because the opening came up late—- the temptation was too great. I’d lapse into the spoken passages of the song. If I could use those “asides” within the song, I could really “sell” it. (Today, it would be politically incorrect. You’d probably be penalized or kicked out or something).
I entered that room determined to show the teacher who had made that comment to me. I found it interesting to hear Jennifer Hudson articulate a similar incentive to excel after she was cut from American Idol and told the producers she’d be back, and they laughed.
I received a Division I Solo rating (1st Alto). I still smile when I remember the look on my teacher’s face. He was a very good teacher, very popular with all of us, and was selected to be the choral instructor (for years) at Wartburg College soon after that, but saying that to me? Right at that crucial moment in time?
Probably not the greatest, most encouraging thing you could or should say to a young person scared out of their mind at performing in front of judges, just as she goes in to compete,—especially one who was only a “fill-in” soloist, at that. But I was one determined young person after that vote of no confidence from my choral instructor.
I went on to spend 3 and ½ years as a member of Old Gold Singers at the University of Iowa, after participating in Oratorio Chorus and University Choir. Old Gold Singers was an elite singing group at the University of Iowa—a sort of show troupe used for recruiting football and basketball players.
So, take that, Mr. McKinley, wherever you are. (Ha!)
Recommended Articles:
The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats – a Review
The Christmas Cats Fear for the Deer – a Review
Thanks for hosting Constance!