Cat on the Scent (Mrs. Murphy Series #7) [NOOK Book]

Interviews & Essays

Rita Mae Brown: I'm doing great. It's a perfect day!

Rita Mae Brown: Well, she writes them, so she has the biggest role. And since she has claws and sharp teeth -- I do what she tells me! There are no conflicts!

Rita Mae Brown: That the cat demands tuna and catnip! She's a greedy bitch...

Rita Mae Brown: Those decisions are all made by the art department at Bantam. They're polite and ask me what I think, but that's the art director's bailiwick.

Rita Mae Brown: It will be out in May. It was Sneaky's idea, because she simply can't get enough attention. And there are recipes for humans, cats, dogs, and horses.

Rita Mae Brown: Sneaky says, why do you even pay attention to Ricki Lake? It's the cat that's important! But she's glad you liked the movie.

Rita Mae Brown: Well, Sneaky thinks the cat was almost as pretty as she is, and we thought we'd like to see a little more work on the humans. We thought the animals were perfect!

Rita Mae Brown: Yes, I'm looking at them! They let Sneaky do all the work, but they're happy for all the attention they get! They're both a little lazy in that respect...

Rita Mae Brown: Probably not. I don't own the rights to it, and I just think it's too hard for anyone to get off the ground. If I owned the rights, I think I could do it, but I can't even afford the rights to my own book.

Rita Mae Brown: Well, first I commend your good taste. I attribute my style to studying Greek and Latin in high school and then college. And because I have such a sound basis, because I really did my homework, that's why I'm so free. Thank you for praising me!

Rita Mae Brown: It was a Disney Movie of the Week. I think it aired somewhere between the 15th and the 20th of December (maybe the 18th.). The title was, I think, "Murder, She Purred" or something like that. I don't remember because it was different from my title. It did very well, and we're very happy.

Rita Mae Brown: Occasionally I teach writing if someone gets sick at a college. But usually my schedule is such that I just can't. No, I won't be doing any conferences this summer -- I just did my last conference this weekend, in the Berkshires. We have an Internet address: wwww.ritamaebrown.com, and if you check that, you can see what my schedule is.

Rita Mae Brown: No, but she's going to get a love life in the future ones, and it will be a surprise! Anything worth having is worth waiting for...

Rita Mae Brown: It's greening up because of spring. The dogwood is blooming, and it's 430 acres. I rent another 180, and it's a lot of work, but I love it.

Rita Mae Brown: Well, since the cat tells me, of course not! No, I don't have any trouble with the animal perspective. They just give me orders, and I march!

Rita Mae Brown: I'm not sure I understand that question. Nothing jumps to mind. I mean, I know there are some gay mysteries that are lots of fun.... There are a couple of people doing it, and I think they're a lot of fun! I'm just blanking out on their names, and I apologize.

Rita Mae Brown: I did a documentary on Mary Pickford, but I don't think it has an airdate yet. And I'm currently working on a screenplay, but you never know if these things will see the light of day. You just do 'em and pray. The one I'm working on right now is called "The Hunt Ball."

Rita Mae Brown: Yes, but the thing is I never know when. I never know what my publisher will send me for, but usually about once every two years I go there. And I'll be at a fundraiser for the Fenway Community Center this Sunday in Boston. So if you call the Fenway Community Center, they can tell you where it is.

Rita Mae Brown: Yes, I always wanted to be a writer. I got my start in the anti-war movement, in the underground newspapers. And the best thing you can do is to learn Latin.

Rita Mae Brown: I'll pray for your wealth nightly.

Rita Mae Brown: I've never read 'em, but they must be very good, I'm sure.

Rita Mae Brown: It's an old southern expression. When somebody gets one over on you or fools you, and it's funny -- it's not like they've done this in a bad way -- you'd say, "You old sneaky pie!"

Rita Mae Brown: I'm making notes. I'll probably start it next year. What intrigues me about it is that he encounters a crisis that's not of his own making. He inherits this terrible problem, which he's told on his 30th birthday, and trying to solve the problem makes a man out of him. People who come into their own, who mature, fascinate me.

Rita Mae Brown: Yes. I'm working on one now, which will probably be published in 2002.

Rita Mae Brown: Not if I can help it! I much prefer writing fiction...

Rita Mae Brown: Because it was a big turning point. People were going from one century to another. And because we were just beginning to see slavery catch on in the colonies. They hadn't really been importing a lot of them yet, but it just started. And of course, reading the book with hindsight, we know what will come of it. And I hope you foxhunt, or learn how.

Rita Mae Brown: The interesting experiment for me lately is a book I'm working on that we won't see until 2002, but it's a book about betrayal, which is an issue that haunts me, but I've never written about it. So this is my chance.

Rita Mae Brown: Yes, Mr. Ferguson's THE PITY OF WAR. I read military history all the time, and I have a biography of Frederick the Great that I'm waiting to arrive from England; it's not printed in the United States yet. So those are what I'm waiting for, getting ready to get to, and excited about.

Rita Mae Brown: Well, I just finished a big conference in the Berkshires, and I think that's it for now. Now, next year, I don't know, I think there's supposed to be a big march on Washington and all that kind of stuff, and I suppose I will join in if I am asked. As I'm speaking to you, the biggest blue jay just swooped down on one of my kitties!

Rita Mae Brown: Yes, I return to read the classics. I don't think one can learn to live a literate life without doing that. It gave me a solid basis in Western literature. It gave me a grasp of language by having the Latin and the Greek, and above all, it gave me discipline.

Rita Mae Brown: That according to Sneaky Pie, God is a cat! I love the research -- I mean, you only use 10 percent of your research, but that's just one of the best parts of being a writer.

Rita Mae Brown: The biography of -- Clare Tomlinson, the British writer, did a marvelous biography of Trollope. And there's a marvelous biography of Gladstone. They're two of the best-written biographies I think I've read in recent years. I don't know what your tastes are, but Douglas Southall Freeman wrote four volumes on Robert E. Lee decades ago, and they're still the standard. There's an awful lot of good biography out there, there really is. I think Clare Tomlinson just did one on Jane Austen. You can look it up on this site, but I think she just completed one...

Rita Mae Brown: Sneaky's done it already, and it's Harry's 20th high school reunion, and she thinks that she's very clever, and it will be released next year, in the spring, when all her books are released.

Rita Mae Brown: What's exciting to me about the 21st century is that maybe humankind will learn violence solves very little. That's my hope.

Rita Mae Brown: Actually, no, it's not at all about Martina. It's about two women who meet in college and become friends. And no, I don't have any signings planned -- again it's up to my publisher, and maybe they'll send me there next year to promote my next book. They kind of pick areas to send you to, and do it by region. I miss California!

Rita Mae Brown: It's nice to know somebody else's family is as crazy as my own!

Rita Mae Brown: I just finished AN EXCESS OF MADNESS -- I think that's the title -- about behavior during the Regency in England. I thought it was very well done. And I'm currently reading the diary of Mrs. Samuel Pepys, which is of course a response to Samuel Pepys's diary, which was written in the 17th century. It's very clever...

Rita Mae Brown: That I get to write and ride, and work my hounds every single day without fail! I love my farm; I love just being on it.

Rita Mae Brown: No, I've never read another feline mystery, and I just don't know when I'll ever get to it. I like an awful lot of English writers. I like Clare Townsend, even though it's nonfiction, and I like the Oxford don Ferguson -- it might be Neil, but I'm not sure. I like Wally Lamb and Tom Wolfe, and I think Susan Isaacs builds a very good story, and I think that David Baldacci has an uncanny ability to write a thriller, and then it comes to pass in real life. It's eerie. But I read constantly -- it's hard to pick favorites; I just read all the time.

Rita Mae Brown: Yeah! Think of what you really, truly want to do with your life and then do it, no excuses. What the mind conceives, the body achieves. That's all I have to say.