Who Are the Cat Writers’ Association: Jody Wallace   

by Mollie Hunt

Who are the Cat Writers’ Association? is a series of interviews with CWA members, but not your usual who, what, and where discussion. I like to ask different questions and am always amazed by the answers. I hope you are, too.

Jody Wallace is our guest today on Who are the Cat Writers’ Association?

Jody considers herself a relatively new member of the CWA (she’s been a member for just a few years) but says the organization keeps her inspired as the publishing industry changes every day.

Jody’s thirty-plus titles include science fiction-fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, and contemporary romance. Her fiction features diverse protagonists, action, adventure, and humor. Her readers frequently comment on her great characters, suspenseful stories, and intriguing and creative world building. When describing her methods, Jody says: “There are two sides to every story. I aim to tell the third. And I add cats regardless.”

Outside of her fiction career, Jody has employed her Master’s Degree in Creative Writing to work as a college English instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and all-around pain in the butt.

Part 1:

About My Craft:

Since I have can’t-shut-up-itis, I took my MFA in Poetry and turned it into a fiction writing career. I started publishing in the early 2000s, both independently and with traditional publishers, but right now, I’m primarily an indie author.I write romances with speculative elements, the occasional contemporary romance, and I often add cats to make things more purrfect! My cattiest series is probably the Cat Ship Series, a trilogy set in the far, far future where cats have become sentient and are trying to decide if humans are a help or a hindrance.

How cats inspire my creativity:

Each time I add a cat to my fiction, it’s an attempt to encapsulate just what a joy it is to have cats in our lives. Humans are lucky that cats allowed themselves to become semi-domesticated. There is nothing like the feeling when a cat decides you are an acceptable human.

What I Enjoy About Belonging to CWA:

I like knowing that my delight in including cats in my stories will be completely simpatico with everyone in the group. I love reading all the submissions as a judge in the annual CWA Communications Contest. I hope to become more settled in my life so that I can also take advantage of the recent CWA Zoom Chats and perhaps a future retreat. It’s just heartening that there’s a whole group of writers who are cat-obsessed like me and eager to talk shop.

Part 2:

Mollie: Did you grow up with cats?

Jody: The only time I was without a cat was when I lived in a dorm in college. Once I got my own apartment in graduate school, the universal cat distribution system went to work. The only issue was that I had to move home for a while. My cat at the time, the Very Horrible Sophy, decided she liked living with my parents on the farm more than with me, so after I moved out again, I had to wait almost a year before the universal cat distribution system blessed me with my next hairy little taskmaster. Our household currently has five cats, but at one time we had seven.

Mollie: What crosses your mind when someone tells you they don’t like cats?

Jody: They have no imagination and are probably mean at heart. Or they are sadly allergic and cope with their despair by claiming to dislike cats. Granted, I suppose there are some folks who have honest phobias or personality quirks that make living with animals in the house difficult, and because I think it takes all different kinds of people to make the world go around, I hope they thrive as much as cat people do.

Mollie: What cat-themed item is sitting on your desk right now?

Jody: I don’t have a desk so much as a “nest” beside one end of a reclining sofa. On one side of me right now is a cat. She is a butthole, and she likes to sit two inches further away from what I can reach so that my longing to pet her remains unfulfilled. 

On the other side of me is a side table covered with yarn, books, Tylenol, a wooden bowl filled with odds and ends I don’t want to lose track of (too bad I have no idea what’s in there), a pencil cup, a large craft light, a half-completed crochet vest, a can of cat shaped paper clips (there’s one cat item!), a mostly dead Kindle, a set of highlighters with cats on the lids (another cat item!), a tiny crocheted Star Wars ship I took away from the cats when the stuffing started to come out (technically a cat item), and two empty coffee cups…and yes, one has a cat on it.

Mollie: Does cat love run in your family?

Jody: Oh, yes! My sister and her family have six cats right now, and she works part time with a dog and cat rescue organization. My oldest child is almost as excited about the future cat she plans to adopt when she gets her own apartment as she is moving to graduate school in the fall.

Mollie: If you were a cat, what breed would you be?

Jody: All American Trash gremlin.

Mollie: Do your cats get along with each other?

Jody: Not…really. Two of my lady cats have to live in the basement (don’t worry, it’s finished and one of my kid’s bedrooms is down here) because they hate our two boy cats so much that they will rage pee and rage poop in the least convenient places so the humans know they have committed the grievous sin of allowing the boys to intrude in the lady zone. Our third lady cat is ancient,completely deaf, and doesn’t give two meows about the boys, so she lives upstairs with them. The boys love each other very much and are super disappointed they don’t get to harass the basement kitties more often – only when they hyperspeed past a human who closes the basement door too slowly.

Mollie: What would your life be without cats?

Jody: Desiccated, sad, and less messy.

Mollie: Have you ever seen a ghost cat?

Jody: The closest I’ve come is seeing cats I have recently lost out of the corner of my eye, in a sunspot, in a spray of autumn leaves, in a folded-up sweater on the bed. Have I unthinkingly reached out to pet the sweater? Yes, yes, I have. It was a very soft sweater.

Mollie: “Adopt, Foster, Volunteer, Donate, Educate” is a common slogan for animal rescue. What do you like to do?

Jody: Adopt and donate! Although it’s tempting, I would be a nonstop foster fail.

Please give us the names and short descriptions of your cats.

Magnus, named for Magneto of X-Men fame, is a flame point Siamese in coloration, but not a purebred. He is cuddly, firm-bodied, kind of dumb, refuses to let me trim his wicked claws, and easily spooked. He loves to breathe in the fresh air through a window screen but doesn’t seem to have any desire to be an outdoor cat.

His brother/bff Charlie, named after Charles Xavier of X-Men fame, is a lanky little ginger guy, less dumb than Magnus, skittish, loves to try to catch the red dot, will climb everything, including a straight-up wall, and is most likely to escape into the basement to harass the ladies. Charlie and Mags were trapped by a feral cat rescue group for neutering when young and deemed too socialized to return to the wild, so we swooped in and nabbed them several years ago.

Pip is very, very small, 5-6 lbs, and is a smoky gray tabby. My sister got Pip for me for Christmas one year because I wanted a more cuddly kitty to sit with me while I wrote, and she thought Pip would be that kitty. Pip…is not that kitty. Pip LOVES pets, but only when she wants them. She does not have much use for humans otherwise. She does love to torment humans by sitting just outside of your reach, looking powdery and adorable and sticking a knife in your heart as she withholds her affections.

Grey is a 19-year-old gray tabby who lives in the basement with Pip because both Pip and Grey hate the boys. Grey rarely gets off my daughter’s bed anymore, except to amble across the basement to drink the good water from the water fountain instead of the old gross water in her freshly cleaned water bowl. She is not too old to bite you if you pet her the wrong way though, and she enjoys rubbing the crusty sore on her head across your arm.

Last but not least, our other old lady is Merri, a formerly giant ginger girl who has become a bit more shaky and thin in her old age (also 19). Merri has survived several strokes,is completely deaf, and is so loud that I feel like she’s determined to make all the humans deaf, too. Merri likes to jump up on the bed at 3 AM right where my face is, and dig her claws in to keep from falling back onto the floor. Does she have a step to get in the bed? Yes, she does. I guess clawing my face is more satisfying. Merri also has decided cat pans are for chumps and enjoys making her deposits right beside the cat pan. We are on our fourteenth attempt at remedying this situation, and she just likes what she likes, I guess.

You can find author Jody Wallace on her website.

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