It is my pleasure today to introduce you to Clea Simon.  Clea is the author of three nonfiction books and two mystery series. The nonfiction books are mad House: growing Up in the shadow of psychologically ill siblings (published as a Doubleday hardcover in 1997, released as a Penguin paperback in 1998), Fatherless Women: how We change After We lose Our Dads (Wiley, 2001) and The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious connection between women and Cats (St. Martin’s Press, 2002).  Her Theda Krakow mystery series was launched in 2005 with Mew is for Murder and continues with Cattery Row and Cries and Whiskers, all now available in paperback, and Probable Claws.  She just launched her new Dulcie Schwartz series launches this month with shades of Grey, and it will continue in March 2010 with Grey Matters.

Clea’s essays are included in the following anthologies: cat Women: female Writers on Their Feline pals (Seal Press) and For Keeps: women tell the truth about Their Bodies, growing Older, and Acceptance (Seal Press).  Her short mysteries are found in Deadfall: crime stories by new England Authors (Level Best) and the upcoming Cambridge Voices.  She has also written new introductions for two Agatha Christie classics, The Mysterious affair at styles and The secret Adversary, published by the Barnes and Noble library of vital reading in March 2009

Clea is also a respected journalist whose credit histories include The new York Times and The Boston Phoenix, and such magazines as American Prospect, Ms., and Salon.com.  She used to do a fair amount of music criticism, but now mostly focuses on relationships, feminism, and psychological issues.

Clea grew up in east Meadow, on suburban long Island, N.Y., and came to Cambridge, Mass., to attend Harvard, from which she graduated in 1983.  She’s never left, and now happily cohabits with her husband, Jon S. Garelick, who is also a writer, and their cat Musetta. 

As a longtime fan of Clea’s writing, I’m thrilled to welcome her to The conscious cat today.

Thank you, conscious Cat.  It’s a pleasure to be here.

Clea, you’re about to launch shades of Grey, the first in your new Dulcie Schwartz series.  Can you tell us a little about the book and the series?

Have you ever lost a pet – and then felt like your cat isn’t really gone?  That’s how shades of Grey opens.  Dulcie Schwartz is having a miserable summer.  Her graduate studies are going nowhere, her great roommate has been replaced (temporarily) by a boorish subletter, and, worst of all, she’s had to put her cherished cat, Mr. Grey, to sleep.  So when she comes home from her crappy summer job to see a cat who looks just like Mr. Grey sitting on her front stoop, she’s sort of shocked.  but then when that cat says to her, “I wouldn’t go inside, if I were you,” she doesn’t know what to make of it.  Being Dulcie, she doesn’t really pay attention and goes inside – to find her roommate dead, with her knife in his back, and a whole mess of problems waiting.  maybe it would be a good time to point out here that Dulcie is studying the Gothic adventure stories of the late 18th Century.  She just never expected her own life to become a ghost story…

What made you decide to start a new series, rather than continuing the successful Theda Krakow series?

I actually composed shades of Grey while Cries and Whiskers, the third Theda book, was in production. I needed to take a break, I wanted to try something different and … voila!  then my editor at Poisoned Pen press asked about Theda and I was delighted to return to her and write Probable Claws.  but soon after that, shades of Grey offered on the condition that I write a sequel.  I’ve just finished Grey Matters, which will be out in December in the UK, by March in the US.

You are a prolific writer – did you always know that you wanted to be a writer? 

Always.  I’ve always liked telling stories and I composed those stories down from the first days I could write.  It was just a question of figuring out if I could do this for a living.

You’ve written both fiction and nonfiction.  Do you like one over the other, and if so, why?

These days I much like fiction.  I find it a lot more fun.  but it needs a different kind of effort.  Nonfiction, and for me that also includes journalism, is about presenting a truth, or truths.  Facts and research.  I believe in over-researching, that is, doing enough interviews and research so you start to hear the same stories again and again.  I always want multiple confirmations of anything I’m writing about.  I want to make sure I have the story right. I’m also very conscious of what a very smart editor once told me: we strive for objectivity, but it doesn’t exist.  all of us have a bias, a viewpoint, a prejudice.  So when I write nonfiction I also want to make sure that I present the options and, when possible, that I’m aware of my own bias or viewpoint. When I can, I try to state who I am as the writer in a piece.  Lenullnull