Step into a cat's world in a captivating new novel

0:00Have you ever wondered what a cat feels like when its paws touch cool grass or a crunchy leaf? When it hears the buzz of an insect or comes face to face with a human? A new book has just been released that lets you feel the senses and hear the thoughts of a cat. Coming up next, I'll visit with the author of The Wild Side of the Wall on the Hissing Feed Line. Stay with me for an awesome show. Woo! Hi, I'm Clark Greer, retired communications professor, a full time cat dad and host of The Hissing Feed Line, a podcast that is about everything cats. Each week, cats specialists share their expertise in everything from beeline health, training and adoption to fostering community cats and kittens. Now lets get started with today's show. This is the first episode with a new format and an inspiring cat story.

1:01I hope you'll enjoy the new weekly feature at the end of this podcast. I'm pleased to have Cat McCarthy as my guest on this episode of The Hissing Feed Line. Cat is an author and member of the Cat Writers Association. She's here today to talk about her brand new novel The Wild Side of the Wall, a cat's tale of courage, kinship and joy. Thank you very much for visiting with me on today's podcast. Oh, thanks so much for having me, Clark. This is a delight. This is not your first writing experience. You're actually a professional writer and you've been talking a lot of different types of writing. But this is not your first writing experience as it relates to like public writing. I understand that you wrote something that's called succulent, electric. Yes, the succulent, eclectic is a website where I do basically helping people learn how to grow their succulents and help them thrive. That would be something that I think I could probably help. We're in Iowa and in the winter time, the succulents don't like the cool weather.

2:05There are some that would thrive in your climate. What are some motivations that you've had in general to start writing? I've always loved writing and I've been writing professionally for a number of corporate clients for many years, although AI is coming to swallow that career right now. It was actually that. It was the looming crisis that AI is causing for writers that made me finally decide to bite the bullet and write this book. That was something AI couldn't take. And creativity and creative thoughts and those directions, I think are really important because you can put the human element into it and actually what's going on around. And we'll talk a little bit about the wild side book, but I think it's really important to not forget the human element in writing. Oh, I agree. And while AI can do really impressive things linguistically, it doesn't have that creative spark. It doesn't have the new idea. It's just repeating what others have already said many, many times.

3:08Now, let's talk about the wild side of the wall book. It's really interesting and I've been reading several chapters of it. It's just fascinating. Read. Let's talk a little bit about the overall content where you were headed with the content of the book. My big goal, actually my whole life, I'm an avid reader and I always wanted to find a book that would let me feel what it is to be a cat. Right? I mean, I have trudged through deep snow in Narnia and I have crept up into a dragon's cave. That's what writing lets us do, right? We inhabit another life. So I wanted one that would let me experience what is it really like to be a cat, a natural cat. And I never found the book that would do that. So eventually I decided to write it. Can you tease the book a little bit? I don't want to give away too much of it talking about it, but maybe you could give us an overview of the content of the book. Yeah, you bet.

4:08Cricket is a young female free-rangeing cat. She doesn't live with anybody. She makes her living by her wits and through hunting and hiding and staying safe. She is on her own now. She lost her mother and her litter makes because life is tough for a cat on the round. She's gotten really good. She sort of mastered the whole concept of survival. And now that big predator brain of hers is hungry for more stimulation. And she decides to search that, search for that in the form of a friend. She misses the closeness she once had with her litter mates. She'd like to have a friend and there is a large friendly dog in the neighborhood. And that's who she meets. The dog is full of puppies and her name is gentle and they become immensely fast friends. Approaching the book and you and I have talked before about this and it's not just a nice idea to write the book, although it is. It's a great book.

5:09But there's a lot of science that goes behind it and a lot of research that things. What were your initial thoughts before starting the book project? Because it's pretty complex. I wanted it to be authentic. I wanted this cat to be a real cat, not anthropomorphism, not human ideas or behaviors wrapped up in fur. I wanted this to be the cat. And to do that, I felt like I really needed a lot of research into the science behind the behaviors, the meaning behind the behaviors. For instance, we all know that cats grow a lot. But they do it for many more reasons than just to be clean. For instance, well, it's critical to remove any trace of scent of your prior meal when you're had to do your next one, right? Yeah. Turns out, science has found out that clean, silky fur is quieter in the stock than fur that is less well-tended. So that's another part, is that they're always keeping their fur in prime condition for

6:14the next hunt. But it's interesting. Grumming also regulates a cat's mental and emotional condition. It calms their heart rate. It calms and you stress. So you know how you'll sometimes see a cat fall off a ledge or do something really silly. And immediately they stop to groom themselves. As if we have to think, yeah, as long as my fur looks great, it doesn't matter. No, I meant to do that, right? Exactly. That was totally intentional on the look how good I look. Actually, that soothing them is calming them. It's helping to erase distress. So I was using things like that, natural-feel-in-behavior in the book, but I wanted to explain to the reader, I wanted to show rather than tell all the different reasons cats do these different behaviors. Did you have a main inspiration for writing the book? I know we were talking a minute ago about the fact that this style of writing where you're putting yourself basically in the paws of the cat is really a kind of a unique thing to

7:20write from that perspective. Was there an inspiration that you had for writing this poem? Well, there are nine different cats that I have known and loved throughout my life. And each one of them makes up a part of cricket. Cricket is the name of the cat. Now, cricket is also holding her own. But yes, when she is chasing raindrops, that's Tango. When she meets the black and white female on the wall, that black and white female is Maggie. For all these cats that I've spent years studying and watching and trying to understand, and so this book is all of that coming to fruition. Let's talk a bit about cricket. She's an interesting cat and obviously has a lot of experiences and encounters a lot of different things. What kind of personality does she have? She's an orange cat. And if you know about orange cats, then you know they tend to be extra full of playfulness

8:21and personality. And that's cricket all over. She's young. She realizes she's young and still learning. She still has kitten. She's very playful and she pretends which I maintain most cats do. So sometimes we see her walking along and all of a sudden she thinks that leaf, that twig, is staring at her. And that's a reason to suddenly drop into a stock and wait for it not to be looking and creep up and smack it and then race away. So she plays with the breeze and with the moth. And there's always this half hunting, half playful experience from her. And cats are that way. And they are. People are listening to this podcast have probably at least one cat, if not multiple cats in their household. And a cat's personality is really interesting. Sometimes we'll see our calico and she just sits there staring at us or staring at something

9:22and we look around and say, what are you looking at? So I guess there's something that really intrigues her. She may hear something you don't hear and I certainly maintain she might be pretending about it when my cat karma sneaks up on a rock and then deliberately circles around. I figured to come out of the rock from a perspective where it doesn't see him, right? And sneaks up and then smacks it and races away. There's a lot of interesting ideas going on in the cat's mind. I think we can see that they're pretending as they play when animals play fight, right? And cricket and gentler playing and gentle does a mop charge, but then stops and cricket jumps at her and then jumps away. The play fighting in and of itself is pretend. Which tells us I think that these animals have a lot more interesting cognition going on than we ever imagined. We see that with the puppies, gentle by the way is full of puppies when we first meet her. And she does give birth and cricket is very involved in the raising of the puppies and she watches

10:29them the way they play and the way they learn things and the way gentle protects them. It's really fascinating. But I think we definitely see lots of elements of pretending in their play. One of the things that happens early in the book is that cricket would like to go outside her yard or where she normally is. That's really kind of the book itself is going over from her area into the wild and experiencing all these types of things. That really shows that cats do have desires to experience other things in the world. Oh, absolutely. Her territory is everything for cat living wild. You need to know your territory intimately, visit it all the time to record what is changed and what is still the same. But there comes a point where, like I said, that big predator brain wants more stimulation and learning new things, going a little bit further, meeting a new animal.

11:30These are great ways to involve the brain and to learn and experience more. What did you learn from writing the book? We'll talk about that first and the next thing is going to be from the audience perspective. We talked about that having a lot of science background and experiential background. What types of things that maybe you learn from writing the experience? Writers don't always go into what their project is saying, I know everything is, wow, I discovered this while I was writing. You're not going to scare frees to talk about. Well, yes. It's almost where to start. There was so much in the science that was fascinating to explore. As a result, I created a blog called thecatstail.com and that's where I do science-based blogging to share with other cat lovers the science behind these amazing creatures we love. But I also found it was a very intimate experience. I write it from her first person perspective and to be able to authentically write from

12:36a cat's point of view, I would sort of feel like I sunk in, sort of sunk my consciousness into her mind and would look at the world from behind her eyes and nose and cats are all smell first before sight. And that was interesting. I really wanted to understand what life would be like if you're not sight oriented the way we are, but it's all about smell and sound and then sight. I found it to be an unusual mindset that was at all the stress, all the noise, all the chaos of daily life would just fall away. Because they are extraordinarily focused on right now. So what we learn in mindfulness, that's the cat. The cat is entirely in the moment. And yet, so it seems very relaxing, but it's actually very, very aware as well. So it's this interesting dichotomy and it's a marvelous experience that sense of an extraordinary calm combined with awareness and what's been extraordinary is that I've heard

13:40some a number of early readers that yes, that's what they feel when they read it. So I find that very exciting. That's actually good for humans to think about too, because with the hustle and bustle of the world, sometimes it's good to be quiet and just observe things. And we can learn so much by kind of getting away from a hectic nature of life. And that's maybe that's what cricket is trying to do is in with scent and she can send that. With our own cats, that's one of the first things I go to pet the cat and she's got to smell me. And I guess she wants to make sure it's actually me. So that's a really important thing. But the awareness of a cat to its surroundings, I think we forget a lot of things as humans, but animals don't. They really know what's going on around them. Yes, they're just alive to a whole world of sensations that we just sort of disregard. You were just talking about your blog, the cat's tail. Is there a difference between the blog and the book?

14:40Oh, very different. The blog is where all of my, a lot of the science that I discovered, that's where I take it from more of an informational experience and give you the science. This is what scientists say about how cats sleep and why cats sleep or why they per. Cats per for so many different reasons. It's really just superpower. So that's just too cool to learn and keep from other cat lovers. So that's what goes into the blog. But in the book, there's the science that I know behind it, but the book is entirely coming alive as cricket. Cricket doesn't think about the science. She inhabits being the cat. She is so present in her life in every moment. And that's what I'm trying to show. She's a cat that's just being a cat and doing cat things. Yeah. You want the reader to get a sense of how she's using her senses. And when she encounters things, if it's going to be a playful thing, if it's going to be

15:43a little bit anxious of something, you can really see that in the book. There's the only different types of feelings. Cats aren't, I guess, a lot of people have this perspective of cats as well. They're kind of just around, but cats are really smart and they know what's happening. They do, and they're very busy. The mind, when they're living their life outdoors, their mind is always very, very busy. There's so much to process, and it must be processed accurately and immediately so that they can respond and stay safe or to the advantage of the opportunity for hunting. There's really a lot going on for cat, which is why we talk about how important it is to provide enrichment for our own cats. Cat lovers here all the time, you've got to enrich the life of your cat. They know that, they read it. But I kind of think that if they read my book, they'll get a far better idea from the cat's perspective. What did they need and why?

16:44I had a guest on probably a couple of months ago, and she was talking a lot about cat enrichment and having the cat go outside. Maybe it's on a leash with a harness. And how it's important for cats to experience their surroundings. That's part of enrichment, as is play. A lot of the things the book talks about that cricket goes through. Absolutely. What is the connection between cat behavior and people's lives? Do you have any human connections that people might enjoy and say, oh, yeah, that feels like kind of me or my cat? Well, I have loved and cherished cats my whole life. And yes, I've had a number of amazing experience with my cat, which is partly why I've so wanted to do this. This book is kind of like my love letter to every cat that I've ever known. Gosh, where to start? Maggie, who we only ever hear about as the black and white female, the cricket encounters, Maggie was a straight cat who lived in our neighborhood and had had a rough life.

17:52She was pregnant when we met her and she was very standoffish and particularly terrified of garages. Garages and cars, she was terrified. I don't know what had happened to her, but it was never, ever, ever going to happen again. One morning, it was actually a St. Patrick's Day. My husband and I went out to the car. We had plans. And there she was in the back of my Mustang, giving birth. I was there in time to see the first kitten born. And that was shy, though. So we picked her up and she and her four kittens, she raised them under my desk here. It was a magical experience for me. So all those experiences that you have personally, plus your research and the scientific things, as far as cats are concerned, really played a big part in what we see in the book. Very much so, yes. What do you want readers to come away with? Is there something they can learn from reading the novel? What is your hope that as people read it? I mean, they should enjoy it.

18:53It's really a nice book. There are some specific things that readers should come away with. I would really hope that they would come to far better understand the kind of enrichment that their cat needs in their own home and why it's so important. For instance, we might tell them to bring in safe foliage from the yard, cat safe foliage, so that the cat can smell it and enjoy it and chew on it and wrestle with it and play. And I think a lot of times we think, oh, no, I don't want that in my house. I don't want the dirt. I don't want the mess. I know that that's a nice idea for you, but no, not in my house. I think if you read the book, you'll come to understand how incredibly critical that is for the cat. And when you do, I think you'll see your life choices that way. The carpet versus the cat's sense of joy a little bit differently. So I do think that.

19:55I hope very much that a lot of cats out there get better enrichment as a result. But also, I hope that every reader that still has a little kid inside them that wants to know what it's like to be a kitty cat will really get a chance to do that and enjoy the heck out of it. It seems like as we get older, we lose our sense of adventure, maybe, and things that are really interesting and the way they're fascinated by things. And a cat is always fascinated by whatever runs across. Absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons that we still are so fascinated by cats. There's something magical and wondrous in them. And I think in part, it's because they're always so alive to the magic of wonder around them in ordinary stuff. They're fun to watch. I don't know what we do without our two cats. There's always something in our family. It goes a little quieter in our tabby. She's five, but she runs around and does a lot of things.

20:57We just laugh. We have a great time with these cats. I think reading a book like that will help us appreciate cats and maybe see the fun in life again. I think so. I think so. How might interested readers at least get a sample of the book? If they subscribe on the catstail.com, that's t-a-l-e.com. They can get a free sample by subscribing. They get the first two chapters, so they will meet gentle. Crickets' relationship with gentle is the heart of the story. They are also welcome to buy at amazon.com. It's going to be published on September 8th. I can barely stand it. I'm so thrilled. It is coming up, and I hope the timing on this works out just perfect, and that's why we wanted to do it now because it's a great preview for the book. I so appreciate it. You have no idea. It's just wonderful. And I know the listeners will really enjoy reading.

21:59It gives you a whole different perspective and actually puts you in the pause of the cat, and you can feel it and sense it and kind of know what's going on around cricket. It's really a nice piece. Thank you so much. Cat, this has been a really fun visit with you talking about your novel. Just thank you so much for being my guest on the Hissing FeeLine podcast. Thank you, Clark. It's been such a privilege to be here. Thank you. I've been chatting with Cat McCarthy, author of The Wild Side of the Wall, a cat's tailed of courage, kinship, and joy. It's a wonderful read, and I hope my listeners will get a copy of the book. Coming up next, inspiring cat stories, have an awesome week, and remember to keep hurry. This is Inspirational Cat Stories. Tails about the joys and quirks of cat ownership. Hi, I'm Georgia from Iowa. The cat that inspires me is our 10-year-old Calico Kitty Bridget.

23:03We got her at a Humane Society in Virginia where she had been surrendered when she was a year and a half old. She was very pretty and seemed like such a nice calm kitty. She fell asleep on my husband's lap when he picked her up and held her for several minutes. Somehow we knew she was the cat for us, so he adopted her on the spot. We've had her now for eight years and couldn't have found a sweeter cat. She has become my kitty over the years because I have always wanted a cuddly cat, and she definitely loves cuddled. If I'm lying on the couch or sitting in the recliner, she often hops up and will need in perr. Pretty soon she falls asleep in my arms and can stay that way for quite a while, so I will sometimes nap along with her or read a book. I find it so enjoyable to pet her and just relax right along with her. At night she often comes to lay beside me and will put her head or paw in my arm as we fall asleep. We've become best pals over the years and I don't think I could have found a better

24:06cat that is so well suited to me, and that's my inspiring cat story. You've been listening to Inspirational Cat Stories, a weekly feature of the Hissing Feline podcast. Do you have a humorous, thoughtful or fun story that you want to share with listeners of the Hissing Feline? Visit the contact page on the podcast website at thehissingfeline.com. Scroll down to Inspiring Cat Stories and click the Submission Info button for complete details. Content on the Hissing Feline podcast is for information and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to provide medical, veterinary, or legal advice. Please consult your veterinarian and local and state authorities before dealing with pharaoh and stray cats. Opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and not necessarily those of Duretio Cat Media LLC.

25:06References to products or services do not imply an endorsement. The Hissing Feline podcast is a production of Duretio Cat Media LLC and has been blessed by our rescue cats, Bridget and Maddie. All content is used with permission or under fair use.