Pump Up Chats with Jon Katz

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Jon-Katz-and-dogs

Jon Katz is an author, photographer, and children’s book writer. Rose In A Storm is his nineteenth book, and his first novel in a decade. He lives on Bedlam Farm in upstate New York with his wife, the artist Maria Wulf, his four dogs – Rose, Izzy, Lenore and Frieda – and two donkeys, Lulu and Fanny, and his barn cats Mother and Minnie.

You can visit Jon online at www.bedlamfarm.com.

Thank you for this interview, Jon. Do you remember writing stories as a child or did the writing bug come later? Do you remember your first published piece?

My first published pieces were letters to the Providence Journal, written when I was in Junior High School, and I was writing about traffic, and something about China’s admission to the United Nations. I loved seeing my name in print. I also remember a librarian at the Hope Street Branch of the Providence Public Library asking to read some of my short stories and telling me she expected to see my books on the library shelves one day. I love seeing my name in print, always have.

What do you consider as the most frustrating side of becoming a published author and what has been the most rewarding?

I dislike the long gap between writing and seeing a book hit the stores and websites. I would like to write several books a year, and would, if my editors would let me. They won’t. The most rewarding is getting feedback from people who like my work, are provoked or inspired by it, or find it relevant to their lives. The marketplace is not my enemy, it’s my friend.

Are you married or single and how do you combine the writing life with home life? Do you have support?

I am divorced and re-married. My writing life is my home life. My wife Maria is an artist who fully supports and understands the creative process.

We will drop everything to write a chapter or take a photo or in her case to make a quilt.

Years ago, when I was working for CBS News, I came to believe there was more security in writing at home than working for a big corporation in America. And there is not much security writing. But as things turned it, I have always been able to combine my home life – raising my daughter, living with animals – with my writing life. I am lucky. My wife is wonderful. She told me I could do this novel when I didn’t think I could.

I have all the support in the world, in this marriage and also my previous marriage.

Can you tell us about your latest book and why you wrote it?

Rose In A Storm is a fictional story about a working dog left alone on a farm during an awful blizzard. Much of the story is told from the dog’s point-of-view and I spent several years talking to behaviorists and studied my working dog Rose – who inspired the book – to try and re-create how a dog actually thinks. We often hear people describe what their dogs are thinking, but few people really understand the mind of a dog, and it was very exciting, very challenging to try and capture that. I think I did, and nothing in the book goes beyond what a dog might actually do. The fictional Rose is a real dog, not a Disney dog or an emotionalized one.

Can you share an excerpt?

I have a chapter offered for free on my website, www.bedlamfarm.com (see below) and also free photos of the real Rose, to whom the book is dedicated.

The excerpt is at:

http://www.bedlamfarm.com/rose_in_storm.asp

Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

I love working at home. I have a small study overlooking one of my barns and I can look out at the donkeys and the sheep and the sun flickering off of the red barns. I work in the mornings, and am very disciplined about it, although the world often fails to acknowledge that I am actually working in there. I have four writing dogs who go silent when the computer is on.

What is one thing about your book that makes it different from other books on the market?

I think this is the first book I’ve seen that actually tries to capture the true mind of a dog, without human emotions or words plugged into the animals’ brain or voice. The real minds of dogs – believed to be similar to the minds of autistic children – are fascinating, rich and complex and mystical, far beyond our own words or narrow instincts and emotions. Most dog books are sappy, in my mind. I tried very hard not to do that, and from the early reviews, it seems I have succeeded.

Tables are turned…what is one thing you’d like to say to your audience who might buy your book one day?

I hope you all enjoy the book. I hope you come onto my blog and follow my life as a writer and a human being – www.bedlamfarm.com. I hope my writing touches you, lifts you up and makes you think. I love writing and have no complaints about it. I respect my editors and am grateful to my publisher for hanging in there with me in a challenging environment. I am nothing but blessed, and I want my work in words and photographs to get out there. I write a lot about rural life and family farms and my photos reflect that. Family farms are in trouble and I sell signed notecards to benefit farm aid.

Thank you for this interview, Jon. Good luck on your virtual book tour!

Thanks. I am grateful for the Internet, for social media like this, for e-mail and all the other new tools that have allowed me to live my life as a writer and get my work out there. I see that the reviews that really count are now on sites like this one, and that’s where the action has shifted in publishing and writing. I am sorry to hear so many writers lament having to go online and present their work. It’s nothing but a gift. Reading and writing are not in decline, quite the opposite. So thanks for interviewing me and allowing me to discuss Rose In A Storm.

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How do you make sales happen for you?

A lot of hard work! I sponsor a lot of on line parties, festivals and contests. Book sales don’t magically happen, believe me. An author has to work hard to earn her readers. And then she has to work hard to keep them by giving them something they’ll enjoy reading. I try hard to make my books worth a reader’s time.

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