You are invited to read my seventh post introducing Cat Writers’ Association members to you. In this post, you will meet four more talented members of the organization.
If you wish to purchase any of the books listed by these authors, please let me know in the comment section below this post, and I will forward your contact information to the author.
Gwen Cooper
Our first author featured in this post is Gwen Cooper, who hails from Miami Beach, Florida. Gwen says she is a writer
and a stay-at-home cat mom.
Gwen is truly a cat writer, as they provide the subject matter for all her books. These books include the following: Homer’s Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat; Love Saves the Day; Homer: The Ninth Life of a Blind Wonder Cat, My Life in a Cat House: True Tales of Love, Laughter, and Living with Five Felines; Homer’s World: The “Homer’s Odyssey” 10th Anniversary Scrapbook (coming this December.)
All the “Homer” books plus My Life in a Cat House are memoires/narrative non-fiction. Love Saves the Day is a novel. It is narrated from the point of view of a rescue tabby named Prudence.
Gwen says she has been owned by a cumulative five cats. At the present time she and her husband share their home with Clayton “the tripod” and his litter-mate, Fanny.
Homer is the hero of Gwen’s favorite cat story. She says that one night in the middle of the night, an intruder entered her apartment and bedroom. Homer came to the rescue and chased that intruder out of the bedroom and out of the apartment. Gwen says, “It was an amazing feat for a little blind cat, and he is still famous for it,”
Just another example of how remarkable cats can be, but of course, we knew that.
Carole Nelson Douglas
Our second author is Carole Nelson Douglas. Carole was a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, and has now moved to Fort Worth, Texas. She remarks that she has moved from snowbelt to sunbelt.
Carole says she has gone from being a former award-winning newspaper reporter to a full-time award-winning novelist, and she owes it all to cats.
She discusses her book, Cat In An Alphabet Soup, which is the first of 28 Midnight Louie feline P.I. alphabetical mysteries. In this book, Midnight Louie is the roommate of Temple Barr, who is a petite amateur detective and public relations woman in Las Vegas.
Louie “helps” Temple and her friends to solve murders. Tough female homicide lieutenant C.R. Molina doesn’t believe the cat can solve crimes. Louie gives his point of view in some chapters to give readers the inside story of the investigation.
Meanwhile, Temple’s ex, a magician named Max, had disappeared on her and is now back. There is also a new handsome but mysterious neighbor, Matt Devine, who has entered the picture. So there is a bit of romance in the story.
Carole says she has always had a black cat since she learned about the original “Midnight Louie.” He was a savvy survivor and stray motel cat. A woman guest at the motel flew him 1800 miles to Minnesota to rescue him, giving Carole a good story to write up for a newspaper article.
Though he never lived with her, “Midnight Louie” became the hero of 33 books. A new “Cafe Noir” series has now started, and the first book, Absinthe Without Leave, has just been published. The next book in the series will be
Brandi Alexander On The Rocks.
Carole says she started rescuing stray cats as soon as she could walk. Her mother had a strange aversion to cats, but would allow her to feed them and warm them up in winter for a night in the basement.
Carole’s mother would not have one in the house until Carole was almost in college. Then the cat had to live in the basement unless Carole was home. This so depressed the cat that Carole had to find her a new home. Her mother said she could have all the cats she wanted when she married and had a home of her own.
Carole presently works in TNR, and has indoor ferals now that she lives in a warmer climate. She says that one rescue cat or another is near her all the time.
Susan Ewing
Susan has written 14 books, but the only one wholly devoted to cats is 77 Things to Know Before Getting a Cat. This book covers basic cat care, brief descriptions of the most and least popular breeds, as well as fun facts. The book won a Muse medallion.
Susan says that presently she lives in Jamestown, New York (home of Lucille Ball). She considers Jamestown her home town, though they have lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Arizona.
Her love of cats is evident in her story. She is allergic to the animals and can’t breathe if she is around a cat for too long. She says it’s probably just as well, as her house would be overrun with cats.
Nevertheless, Susan has been involved with cats in spite of her allergy. She served as the president of CWA for six years. Before that, she was the treasurer.
She has written many articles about cats and has won four Muse medallions, the President’s Award for her cat flash cards, and the Michael S. Brim award.
Susan’s favorite cat story is about Acorn, a ginger cat they met in Wales when they were there on vacation in 2004. He was a very friendly cat. On the upstairs hall window of their rental cottage was a note telling them to keep the window shut or the cat would get in.
Her brother dismissed the note and opened the window. Sure enough, Acorn came to visit. The next night, they left the window closed, but Susan’s mother opened her bedroom window. Acorn soon found that window as well. After that, they left the windows closed.
When they visited in 2008, Susan was happy to see that Acorn still enjoyed the yard behind the cottage.
In her photo for this post, she is shown with a shelter cat. As you can see, she is partial to ginger cats.
Dusty Rainbolt
A journalist, Dusty hails from Flower Mound, Texas. (She says, no, it is not a hippy community.) As a journalist, she writes about feline health and behavior. Occasionally she will write fiction, specifically humor, science fiction, fantasy, and horrors.
The title of her book about cats is called Finding Your Lost Cat: The Practical Cat-Specific Guide for your Happy Reunion.
Dusty says that when she was young, she wasn’t permitted to even touch cats. She was told they were dirty, diseased, and not very friendly. When her sister eventually moved back home in the 70s with a pregnant cat, Dusty got hooked on the animals.
Then in the mid-1980s, she took in a pregnant kitty. Someone had moved away and abandoned the cat in the snow. After the kittens were weaned, she rehomed the mother cat and found homes for four kittens. The other two she kept; they lived to be almost 20.
That first encounter with the poor pregnant cat left in the snow caused Dusty to realize the need for cat rescuers. She has been fostering kitties ever since.
Dusty says she has a houseful of unadoptables. She has three three-legged cats, a deaf kitty, and a couple with chronic respiratory issues. She says one of her tripods also suffers from cerebral hyperplasia.
She has a cat named Einstein who came from the Dallas Animal Shelter with her mother and the rest of the litter — three other kittens. Mother Cat and two kittens went to good homes and Dusty kept Einstein and her “Turkish Van wannabe brother.”
She says she’s taught Einstein to respond to numerous commands. The cat is also an enthusiastic photo model. Her
image appears on the cover of several of Dusty’s books, including Finding Your Lost Cat.
A week after the book came out, Dusty left for a two-week cruise. Though they have a cat fence that keeps the cats in the yard, Einstein managed to figure out a way to escape. When they returned home, their cat sitter said she hadn’t seen Einstein the entire time they were gone.
Dusty’s husband said, “Just do what your book says.” So, though sick with the flu, Dusty managed to drag herself out of bed and go to Lowe’s to get sign-making material. She put out three signs as outlined in her book. Sixteen hours later, a dog walker called and said, “I’m looking at your cat.”
If you have a cat, you’d best get one of Dusty’s books, as her suggestions for finding a lost cat obviously work. Dusty says, “Einstein is a very smart, funny cat. I can’t imagine my life without any of our misfits.
Saving that abandoned pregnant kitty from the snow many years ago changed her life.
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Don’t forget — If you would like to order books from these talented authors, let me know in the comments and I will send them your contact information.
A great introduction to these cat book authors – especially interesting that one of the authors is even allergic to cats. I enjoyed hearing how they first became introduced to cats and how that love has influenced their lives.
Yes, there are some interesting women in the CWA organization. It’s fun to do these posts, because then I get to know more about them. I’ve sent out another batch of questionnaires, so hope to have another post soon.