Awesome Authors: Exclusive Interview with Mover and Shaker Cathy Kelly from Ireland She Chats with Peachy Deegan about The Honey Queen, Unicef, Her Gift of the Gab and The Gathering Our Coverage Sponsored by ECO SWIM BY AQUA GREEN
Awesome Author Mover and Shaker Cathy Kelly
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Since her initial interview at in the summer of 2012, Mover and Shaker Cathy Kelly has been writing more novels and short stories, along with trying to keep sane, stop the house from being over-run with books and bringing up her two sons. That includes helping them with their math homework, which is hard as they have to know their times tables (10 X 6) and math is not Cathy's forte. It’s hard to test them in the car going to school when you don’t know the tables yourself.
Her latest novel, The Honey Queen was published in Ireland, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa in Spring 2013 and was highly recommended by Whom You Know. Cathy is now working on her new novel which we await eagerly. She is currently changing the title, the characters and the plot so she can't even tell you what it's about yet. She constantly edits herself for the first part of the new novel until she gets past the point of no return (about half way) where she has to promise herself to commit to the plans that are unfolding for the characters or the book will not be finished!!! There’s definitely some law of diminishing returns about writing which means that the nearer your deadline, the more you think you should be writing a different novel.
Cathy Kelly really enjoyed writing the short stories for Christmas Magic; some were older ones that had appeared in magazines and others were new ones especially for the anthology. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that she thinks she might have to do another collection in the future. Cathy continues her work with UNICEF and as she mentioned in her last interview she visited Mozambique in 2012 which was emotional but ultimately rewarding. Cathy met some incredible women and was reminded that we women are the same all over the world – we’re all just trying to keep our loved ones safe and happy.
The Irish tourism board has organized an initiative for 2013 called The Gathering. The concept is to celebrate Ireland: the villages and towns and cities with those that are based there and those who are overseas with the aim of gathering people connected to Ireland in Ireland. Cathy Kelly is involved in the Enniskerry Gathering which is her local village. A couple of authors from the area are working together for the weekend where they will gather on a stage and probably talk madly about anything people want to hear. They are praying for sun! Cathy has hair that frizzes in the rain and she hasn’t had her roots done… the upkeep of the modern woman!
Cathy continues to receive wonderful heartfelt correspondence from her readers, and she is honored to hear that her books help them in their lives when a storyline touches a nerve with them or that they simply enjoy escaping into other people's lives for the duration of the story.
She has been involved with several readers' events with libraries. Cathy thinks the local library is such a wonderful resource and it's great that libraries are enjoying more appreciation during the recession, and she hopes this will last. We hope Cathy enjoyed our Peachy Landmarks feature today on New York's Historical Libraries. Cathy's sons absolutely love going to the local library AND bookshop of course!
In the quest for the perfect writing and living environment Cathy is on a major decluttering buzz. She is determined to only have the right stuff and less of it! She is sentimental and historically has wanted to hold onto old clothes, cards and such. She must become more ruthless!!! She and her husband have different notions about what is important to have in the house. Himself: very little. Cathy: many things. The more girlfriends Cathy talks to the more she thinks there's the same discussion in every house. It's like the heating. Men want it off. Women want it on...
Cathy is toying with that two-day a week fasting diet because since she has hit 46, she has to try harder to stay in shape. VERY annoying. But she walks her lovely dogs, does Pilates on the reformer, does yoga and convinces herself that if you eat standing up, it doesn’t count. But then, Cathy wonders why we women create these impossible regimes for ourselves in order to turn ourselves into shapes we can never naturally attain. Intellectually, we know this and yet somehow, when we put on something I wore five years ago and it makes me look hideous, we are sad. Why? Peachy Deegan explores quite a lot with Cathy in this follow up Awesome Authors interview. Cathy exceeds Awesome.
Peachy Deegan: What is the difference between a good storyteller and an excellent storyteller?
Cathy Kelly:
Ooh, Peachy, you know how to ask them! I think if you’re a storyteller at all (and I pray on bended knee that I am), then that’s a little miracle. Storytelling makes you care about characters and want to turn the page.
Have you kissed the Blarney stone and if so how many times?
Now if we were talking face to face, you would know that I have never needed to get within a fifty-mile radius of the Blarney Stone. I can talk, baby. It’s an Irish thing. I mean, not all Irish talk but really, most of us never shut up. We are just looking for an audience. Here, in Ireland, if you go down the road to get the papers, a trip that should take ten minutes, you can end up spending half an hour with a variety of different people talking about anything. I think we had it engrained in us during those years when seanachais (the Irish for storyteller) were how the tales of the people were handed down. The oral tradition of telling stories is alive and well in Ireland.
Do you still write in spiral notebooks as you did as a child?
No, my handwriting is so bad, I could have been a doctor. When I write a list to go to the supermarket, it’s like deciphering ancient Greek scrolls, so I write notes in yellow legal pads but type my books or sometimes speak into a Dictaphone if the RSI in my wrist is bad.
We think it is very classy of you not to base your characters on exact people, however, how do you develop such well-colored characters out of thin air?
Thank you mightily for saying there are well-colored characters in my work. The secret is like how do you make a statue of an elephant (well actually, Peachy would probably just ask Rosamond) – you get a block of wood and you chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. It’s the same with characters: you have to spend hours and hours chipping away everything and adding bits (this doesn’t work with elephant sculptures, apparently) until you get it right. To be honest, setting up the characters at the start takes up at least half of my writing time.
What specifically do you admire about each: Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes and MJ Farrell (Molly Keane)?
Maeve Binchy's sense of community and the way she put glorious universal truths effortlessly into her work; Marian's ability to make me laugh and cry in equal measures or tackle such tricky subjects but still keep great humour in her books. She is a true genius and a great friend to me. MJ Farrell for her ability to write gloriously and wittily about another world, books that stand the test of time.
You really tap into the female psyche well. How are you able to do this?
I tend to really think about challenges we face and try and come up with ways to deal with them. During the thinking time maybe I succeed in tapping into things. Also I read, listen and talk a lot. I'm just fascinated by people and our differences and similarities. And I love women. I think we are amazing, and yet so hard on ourselves – always on that diet, worrying about the kids/work/partners/no partners/ parents/the dog... and the endless guilt. If us women could turn some of this energy we use being tough on ourselves outwards, why, we’d all be president.
Do you consider yourself a "girly" girl and is this easy to live out in real life when you live with your husband and two sons?
I was never girly. When I was about ten, I fought this guy who wanted to fight my big brother. And then I wondered why none of the local guys wanted to date me later…?
So no, I am not girlie. I lived on my own for years and like to think I can fix things around the house – my husband disagrees! But when it comes to friends, they are all women. Women rock. Plus, my dogs are all girls.
What do you want everyone to know about The Gathering?
The Gathering is partly a response to the recession and to remind people that Ireland’s a great tourist destination – for example, I live within half a mile of Powerscourt Gardens, one of the most beautiful Italianate gardens in the world which is beside a fabulous 18th century house, on the site of a medieval castle from the 13th century. I walk my dogs in a part of it every day. We want people who’ve been considering coming to Ireland to stop with all that considering and just come. Because we really do welcome you – when they say it’s the land of a thousand welcomes, they aren’t kidding. And if you have ancestors here, come and seek them out. The sense of the power of the past is strong here. It’s a great place to reflect on where you come from and how that’s made you who you are.
What makes The Gathering different from every other outreach that Tourism Ireland has done?
I think it's really capturing the people's imaginations to reach out to other people as opposed to potentially unknown tourists. Ireland at the end of the day is a word of mouth country so we are working our word of mouth approach overseas. You ring your cousins in Philadelphia and say ‘you better come on over, you’ve been promising for years.’
What are your favorite parts of Wicklow, where you're from, and why?
I love county Wicklow. It's known as the garden of Ireland and has rivers, mountains, great meadows with the odd horse grazing and looking sleepily up at you, and the mountains circling it. I paint and when I walk the dogs, I have to stop and stare at the sun shining through the trees to work out what paints I’d have to mix to get the literally hundreds of shades of green – way more than forty. I love that there’s a sense of community here – the whole county has been pulling together to get a hospice built. Wicklow resident Daniel Day Lewis insisted that the premiere for Lincoln was held in Dublin with all proceeds going to the hospice. I’ve done hospice events and events for our local cancer help service. I love that I can go into Kennedy’s in Enniskerry, tell all my worries to lovely Santina who runs it and come out full of cake, coffee and happiness.
Have you been to McGettigan's in Wicklow town. If so what do you like to buy there?
Do you know, even though their name is legendary, I haven’t been there. I will have to go. Goodie! Another mission for me! Plus shopping. What more could a girl want?
Outside of Wicklow what are your favorite parts of Ireland and why?
I love the west of Ireland, where my mother’s from. There’s a glorious rocky beach with shale outcroppings hanging out over the sea and I learned to swim there – avoiding the darn crabs and screaming when seaweed grabbed me. The Atlantic Ocean sometimes caresses and sometimes lashes the shore and it’s glorious. Next stop is the fabulous USA.
What would you like everyone to know about Unicef?
The accident of birth is everything. In our lovely Western world, we have water, health care, a doctor when we need one and generally, protection from harm. So many children have NONE of those things. They risk death from chest infections, the measles, diarrhoea from undrinkable water – 70 per cent of the world doesn’t have drinkable water – death from malaria because they don’t have $6 to buy a mosquito net, death from tetanus shortly after birth (uneducated local midwives cut the umbilical cord with dirty knives and the baby gets tetanus and dies, horribly, ten days later). It costs 11 cents to vaccinate against this. They’re at risk of not getting education, malnutrition and of being used as child sex workers. I’ve been to Mozambique twice where a child dies every fifteen minutes from malaria, and to Rwanda, where education is the cornerstone of building up this great little country which saw over one million people wiped out in a genocide in 1994.
Little children die of HIV/AIDs every moment of every day. Kids in Syria in refugee camps are now at risk of dying from cholera and malnutrition. WE can stop this. UNICEF is a huge organization which can help at governmental level. It takes money to do it. Even commit to $10 a month. Log on to your local UNICEF website to help. I have been privileged enough to see what UNICEF does up close and personal but my mission is to tell other people what I’ve seen.
Do you have any upcoming Unicef travel plans?
I hope to go to Syria in the future with UNICEF Ireland.
Will the Honey Queen be released in North America and if so when?
I think it will be released in 2014 – sorry!
What is your timeline like for your next book?
My first draft is due at the end of the summer. I also have to amuse two ten-year-olds, walk the Puplets of Loveliness and try not to let the house fall apart with having so many books/magazines in it.
What one word best describes you and why?
Peachy! This is impossible. Today it’s frantic with business – I was out last night at a lovely work event, couldn’t sleep when I came home and am now walking like a zombie. The writer Darren Shan has a zombie with my name in a book – I have yet to find out if it’s me or not or if I’m a cute zombie or a really ugly one… Tomorrow, I hope the word will be relaxed. In general, I hope I’m kind and enthusiastic and past nine at night, grumpy!
What do you like to shop for in Bloomingdale's?
Oooh, with a clean credit card... a nice Kate Spade bag maybe
If you could hire anybody who would it be and why?
One of those people who come in and dejunk your house, make you throw out those clothes with the tags still hanging on that no longer fit you but you hold onto, and who would dump all the hair product/odd make-up I’ve bought over the years. If the place was perfect, maybe I could keep it that way…
What is your favorite kind of coffee?
I love Rombouts filter coffee or a skinny cappuccino with lactose-free milk.
Do you have any diet tips for us?
No. Have you any for me?
What are your best decluttering strategies as this is a common problem...
Read the above. I am half-way through a declutter. This is fatal as the house looks worse than before and I have now stopped to write a book.
Other than Movers and Shakers and the literary columns of course, what is your favorite Whom You Know column and what do you like about it?
The Arts column because I love the arts in every form.
Are your dogs as cute and talented as Murphy Boyle and if so do they want to be profiled?
Naturally, I think my puppies are the cutest dogs alive. Licky Heart is white with a proper caramel heart on one side. Scamp Blossom is caramel with amber eyes and looks as though she knows the secrets of the universe. Dinky Star is very nervous but is so brave when she is protecting us and even though she is scared, she is the first to run barking into the garden to ward off invaders like fat pigeons or marauding squirrels.
What else should Whom You Know readers know about you?
I was wearing a lot of makeup which was professionally applied for all my publicity photos. I do not really look like this. And I was wearing Spanx.
