Crazy cat women unite!

As cat lovers and advocates, Erin and I jumped at the opportunity to submit short stories to Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friendsand we were THRILLED when both of our pieces were selected.

Here is the Publisher's Weekly review. Notice that Erin's story is mentioned!

McMorris (Women's Best Friend: Women Writers on the Dogs in Their Lives) collects 29 well-crafted and enjoyable short essays that often focus on how the writer's cat (or cats) has affected her love life—both for better and worse. Kristen Kemp relates how she collected cats to get the affection her boyfriend wasn't giving her. Editor McMorris describes how, after a rough start, when her six-year-old tabby peed on her boyfriend's clothes, he gradually learned to enjoy the cat. A sadder story is told by Susan Schulz Wuornos, evoking the death of her pet just one week before her wedding. The majority of the selections emphasize the individuality and independence of cats, who make certain that their owners know precisely what they want. Erin Torneo stresses that felines are not people pleasers: "They won't plunge into a relationship without careful consideration," And they always have an escape route, lessons she applied to her own relationships. This collection will appeal to all those (especially women) already seduced by the enigmatic feline. (May)
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While we're on the topic of cats: My friend, Paddy once pointed out how visitors to Los Angeles feel it is appropriate to slam our fabulous city. They talk about how terrible the traffic is, the shallow the people are, and how devoid of culture Los Angeles is. No other city is so freely criticized. Cats get the same shabby treatment. Cat owners are thought of as strange, while dog owners are celebrated. Cats are vilified for their persnickity nature, and considered less intelligent than dogs because they can't be trained.

Sure cats do what they want when they want. They get love when they want and they give love when they want and, unlike dogs, who give it up for any stranger with a treat, it takes time to earn a cat's affection. Does that sound like the actions of a dumb animal? I love my dog, but she eats cat poo. Really, is that the sign of a more intelligent animal?

In my previous life as an advertising account planner I worked on a national cat food brand and spent hours and hours thinking about cat owners, cats and cat food. Being a proud cat owner, this suited me just fine. The funny thing is that some of my clients and fellow ad people were not fans of cats and really didn't get them, or their owners, at all. When we conducted focus groups to show consumers a new cat food advertisement I was told not to recruit people who had more than 3 cats, because that was indicitative of a crazy cat person. Likewise, I was forced to recruit only women, because of course only a woman would have a cat. So frustrating.

This book celebrates the relationship between women and their cats. I may need to send a copy of this book to those former colleagues and clients.