Author Interview: Kimberly Pauley

Last month, Kimberly Pauley (illustrious author of Cat Girl’s Day Off) interviewed me over on Read It and Laugh. This month? I had the chance to return the favor. Cat Girl is the other book being published by my publisher this season (or is it THE book, and Vodnik is the “other book”?) The premise? In a world where superpowers are real, one girl is bestowed with a bummer of one: she can talk to cats.

(Me personally? This wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I interact with cats maybe once or twice a year. (Now if it were dogs, on the other hand . . . ))

Here’s the description from Amazon:

Never listen to a cat. That will only get you in trouble. Actually, scratch that. Listening to cats is one thing, but really I should never listen to my best friend Oscar. It s completely his fault (okay, and my aspiring actress friend Melly s too) that I got caught up in this crazy celebrity-kidnapping mess. If you had asked me, I would have thought it would be one of my super-Talented sisters who d get caught up in crime fighting. I definitely never thought it would be me and my Talent trying to save the day. Usually, all you get out of conversations with cats is requests for tummy rubs and tuna. Wait . . . I go back to what I said first: Never listen to a cat. Because when the trouble starts and the kitty litter hits the fan, trust me, you don t want to be in the middle of it.

I have to add that I’m currently reading the book and thoroughly enjoying it. (It has Ferris Bueller references. What’s not to enjoy?) So without further ado, I present to you, the interview:

Q: Reading up on your book some, it seems like Ferris Bueller has a big role in the book. What’s the story there, and why Ferris?

A: There’s a couple of reasons. One is that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of my favorite movies of all time, right up there with The Princess Bride and Adventures in Babysitting and Star Wars and Earth Girls are Easy and…um, we could be here all day. Two is that I was living in Chicago at the time and Ferris, of course, lives in Chicago. The city is practically a character in that movie.

The idea for the book had started with the simple idea of a girl who could talk to cats and her thinking it was a really useless superpower. How was I going to show her that it wasn’t? Somehow I hit upon the idea to incorporate modern day celebrity culture into it, which made me start thinking about movies (and crashing movie sets) and since the book was set in Chicago, that naturally led me to Ferris…

One of the things I love about Ferris is that he is supremely confident. Nat isn’t. Actually, most teenagers aren’t. Heck, most adults aren’t. What can we all learn from Ferris?

Q: I have to ask: Ferris, Cameron, Sloane, or Jeanie (the main characters from Ferris Bueller). Who are you most like, and if you could hang out with only one of them, who would you pick, and why? 

A: Ouch. Um. Probably a combination of Cameron and Sloane maybe? I can’t say I really identify with Jeanie. And as much as I’d love to be like Ferris (who wouldn’t?), I don’t have quite the…um…panache to pull that off. And of course I’d want to hang out with Ferris! There’s no telling where you’d wind up!

Q: Your book is about a girl who can read the thoughts of cats. What’s the worst thing about that power? Best thing?

A: The worst thing? Knowing what cats think. All the time. Because a lot of them are preoccupied with things like tuna and smelly socks and digging for treasure in the litter box. The best thing would be the secrets you could get from them. After all, everyone talks to (and in front of) their cat. No one thinks twice about it.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about being an author? Least favorite?

A: Hearing from fans. Well, and getting the stories out of my head. Otherwise they’d drive me crazy in there. Least favorite would be having to worry about the business aspects of it all. Oh! And the waiting!

Q: In your questions to me, you asked me what I told people when they asked me why they should read my book, and you hinted that you’d come up with the answer when people asked you the same thing. Please share.

A: When I had to answer that recently, I said I want to make people laugh. Out loud. In public. Well, with this book at least. You know, spread some joy in the world.

2 thoughts on “Author Interview: Kimberly Pauley”

  1. Thanks for posting this interview. I’m just about to start reading Cat Girl’s Day Off and this just makes me more excited about it!

Leave a comment

×