The Inspiration Behind Cat Moon

Jennifer L. Gadd is the author of Cat Moon, a soon to be released YA paranormal novel. I asked Jennifer the inspiration behind her upcoming Were-Children series. Here’s what she had to say:

On the one hand, asking someone what their inspirations were in writing a particular story or a specific character has a simple answer: everything! On the other hand, it’s helpful as an author to tease out the threads of the patchwork that becomes a story or protagonist and reflect on them. The first book in my Were-Children series, Cat Moon, comes out from Distinguished Press July 24, but I wrote it almost a decade ago. Reflecting on the inspirations and motivations of my having written it is to travel back in time, and the different pieces of the landscape of my life that are a part of the story are many.

Cat Moon tells the story of a homeless girl named Emma. All Emma wants is a home and a family to love her, but instead, she wanders the streets of a Victorian slum called the Warren, seeking shelter and scavenging for food. To make matters worse, every full moon, Emma succumbs to her illness and shape-shifts into a wild cat. Emma and those like her, the Were, are ruthlessly hunted by the Were-Guard and its leader, a religious zealot who believes the Were are demons in human form. Under those conditions, who could ever love her?

At the time I began writing my novel, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was on shelves in bookstores. That was back when brick-and-mortar bookstores were still a thing! By that time, like so many people, I was thoroughly enamored of the character Remus Lupin. His spirit, skill, and gentleness in the face of abuse and prejudice make him a perennial Harry Potter favorite. At the same time, paranormal fiction had just exploded onto the YA shelves, thanks to a plethora of YA series featuring vampires. I’m a middle school reading teacher by day, and I wanted to tap into my students’ voracious appetites for these books, but at the same time, I wanted to do something different from what everyone else was doing.

The idea of humans shape-shifting into werewolves or other animals occurs in the folklore of many cultures. Sometimes it’s super-power. Sometimes it’s considered to be demonic possession. Sometimes it’s an affliction to be borne by its unfortunate victims. In some of the stories, the change to animal form occurs only during the full moon. Other stories include various substances or actions—wolfsbane, silver, prayers, or incantations – that can protect one from the creatures. All of these things get swirled together into what has become the modern-day folklore of werewolves and how they are hunted down with silver bullets.

Anybody old enough to remember the old Dark Shadows soap opera that aired from 1966-1971? I was a first-grader when it appeared on the TV screen in all its black and white glory. And I loved it. It starred Jonathan Frid, Lara Parker, Grayson Hall, and oh, mercy me, David Selby as Quentin Collins. I think he was a vampire and a zombie at some point, but mostly, he was famous for being a werewolf. A gorgeous, hunky, teen heartthrob werewolf. Oh, yes, Quentin Collins and his lovely theme song playing on the Victrola in old-time Collinwood are definitely part of the folkloric archetype of the werewolf as a sympathetic character, if only in my memory.

So given that my shape-shifters are to be seen as sympathetic victims of an ailment, surely it stands to reason that there are medicines or remedies that might help them. I have some interest in herbal remedies, so I incorporated that knowledge into the story. That seemed to fit nicely with the Victorian setting, given that medicine was still a relatively new, and largely unsuccessful, science during that time.

These, then, are the pieces of inspiration I wove together to create my series, The Were-Children. Motivation, though, is something else entirely. What motivates me to write? Well, that is an uncomplicated issue. I write to get to kids to read, pure and simple. In addition, Cat Moon’s themes of homelessness, teen suicide, and religious zealotry are issues young people deal with and see on the news every day, and we do them a disservice when we dumb down those issues, thinking they’re too deep or too complicated for young readers. I spend my daytime hours helping struggling readers hone their skills, increase their vocabularies, and most importantly, find a pleasure in reading they’ve never experienced before. My goals as a writer of YA books are the very same. It is my hope that Cat Moon is a book readers will connect with and read with interest and joy.

Synopsis:

Emma has big problems. She has no family and no home. She wanders the streets of The Warren, scavenging for her next meal and trying to keep warm. Haunted by the memory of a mother she barely recalls, Emma dreams of being a part of a real family. She is helped in her search for belonging by an assortment of eccentric characters: a friendly shopkeeper and his cranky uncle, the nice woman who runs the local mission, a ditzy cat lady, and a good-natured prostitute with a drinking problem.

Her biggest obstacle, however, is that every full moon, she turns into a feral cat! Emma is one of the Were. She and those like her are ruthlessly hunted by the captain of the Were-Guard, whose religious zealotry makes him especially dangerous. When the sinister Bram Fitzwilliam enters the picture to assist the Guard, Emma is in more danger than ever. Before she finds what she’s looking for, Emma must find a strength and courage she never knew she had. Her journey will teach her that dreams don’t always come true the way you want them to, that people aren’t always what they seem, and that real families can be chosen.

About the Author:

Jennifer L. Gadd is a life-long reader and writer who holds a deep interest in writing quality literature for children and young adults. She writes mostly science fiction and fantasy, as well as hi-lo books for struggling readers. Her favorite authors are Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Candace M. Robb, Ellis Peters, and Anne Perry. She has lived in Texas, Illinois, and Alaska, and currently resides in Kansas City, Kansas, where she is a reading interventionist at an urban middle school.