From Cats to Cars, CWA President Lynn Maria Thompson Shares Her Purrsuits & The Latest from CWA

Editor’s Note:

It is a tradition to start Goodnewsforpets.com interviews with how that person came to embrace their profession in animal health. In this interview with the Cat Writers’ Association (CWA) president, Lynn Maria Thompson, we learn about her journey to writing about cats – born out of grief and now a passion along with her affinity for fancy cars (looking, that is!).  Despite being allergic to cats from an early age, Thompson has learned to develop a tolerance for her own cats’ dander.  She then discusses CWA and the upcoming low-cost conference and online award ceremony. She also addresses the issue of AI-generated content – presently, AI-assisted work is not accepted for awards. Our conversation concludes with the benefits of becoming a CWA member and, if you attend the virtual conference – the chance to win prizes. Enjoy!

Everyone has a story about how they decided to become a cat writer. So why don’t you tell us yours?

My mother died in 2009, and I was going through that period of grief and trying to figure out what I could do to get myself working. If you’ve been through that, you just sort of shut down. You can’t work, you can’t think, you can’t focus, you can’t do anything. The editing and the writing that I had done my whole career on my own, I couldn’t do suddenly. So, I started an online store called Old Maid Cat Lady. I sold products for cats and cat lovers and ran that for a decade. My initial reason for starting it was to make things available to people that you couldn’t find in the pet stores for cats because there were just so many more things for dogs than there were for cats.

I would go to cat shows and see all these fabulous products, and I’m like, why aren’t the stores selling these? I wanted to make those things available to people. I figured other people wanted them, too. In doing that and learning everything I had to learn to put that store together, I learned a lot about cats that I hadn’t known before. [I learned] a lot about cat behavior and cat health and all kinds of things that I’d had no idea about just as a casual owner of cats and a person who lived with cats. I started writing a blog to try to help others learn some of what I had learned and educate people about why they needed the products on my site. That turned me into a cat writer.

Eventually, all of that led me to write my leadership book, The Feline CEO, where I took all of that and applied it to leadership.  Everybody in corporate America has been through some kind of leadership training, but you forget things, or you get stale on things, or you move away from doing things that used to work for you. Looking at it through the lens of cat behavior gives them a fresh perspective. I figured this was also kind of a backdoor way to teach people about cats who may not have thought about learning about cats before. They may not have had cats, or they may not have had any reason to learn anything about them, but through teaching about leadership by using cat behavior, I can explain why cats do certain things and help people understand them a little better and then apply that simple wisdom to business leadership.

People rescue cats, but it sounds like the cats rescued you!

Yes, it changed the trajectory of my career. I was working with many authors, and I still work with authors on books. I still edit, but I’ve been trying to write more of my own work in recent years than I used to. It kind of changed the way I approached a lot of things.

How did you discover you were allergic to cats?

When I was a child, even into my twenties, I couldn’t go into somebody’s house who had a cat without going into a serious asthma attack within about five minutes. They have better drugs for that now. I take an antihistamine every night before I go to bed, and I take a pill for my asthma, and I have other stuff I use, but I think when you live with cats, you kind of get used to the dander of your cats. I’ve tried volunteering at the shelter to cuddle cats, but I can’t do it. I start sneezing, the watery eyes, and the asthma again. So, I think you build up a tolerance to the dander of your cats. And I only have a few, and I have a fairly large house, so they kind of wander around. It’s not all concentrated in a little space.

Have there been any favorite cats over the years, and why were they your favorite cats? 

My little Vixen was my heart. Vixen was a feisty tortoiseshell, and I took her in when she was probably maybe about a year old, and she was quite something. She would not put up with anything. I had another cat at the time that I had adopted first, but he would get terrible separation anxiety, so I wanted a companion for him. Well, she hung out around the apartment where I was living at the time. She’d tag along with the maintenance men and kind of bat at the tools hanging from their belts. She’d lurk in the bushes and kind of swipe at you when you went by. She was playful and fun.

She ran into my apartment one day when my cat had gone out the front door, and I was trying to get him back inside. I went in there, and I heard a noise. I was like, did he come back in? No, she was in there eating his food, and I was like, what are you doing in my house? Get out of the house. And then I felt bad.

Over the next few months, I decided to take her in as his companion. She wouldn’t put up with his intimidation. I’d tried to take in another cat, and he intimidated that poor little cat so badly. I had to return her to the lady trying to re-home her. Vixen did not put up with that. She was smart as a whip. That’s why I named her Vixen; vixen is a word that means female fox. She was very foxy and smart, and she was absolutely gorgeous. Vixen lived to be 24 years old, and she was my heart cat.

She and I could communicate telepathically by the time she died. It was just amazing. She had some little growth on her chin one time. I took her to the vet, and he was looking and said, “I don’t like the look of that. I’m going to take a biopsy.” He left the room, and she looked up at me like, “Oh my God, what is to become of me!” She was genuinely alarmed by what he had just said. I said it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be all right. And she was all right!

Vixen died at home as I had promised her. I would not ever have had her euthanized before her time. She died from natural causes at home, just not long after she had turned 24.

Do you have other “loves”?

Yes, I’ve always loved cars. So that’s another of my loves: cars and antique classic cars. We have an event near here on Amelia Island that used to be called the Amelia Island Concours d’Elgance. When its founder sold the event a few years ago to Hagerty, they changed its name to just “the Amelia.”  I started volunteering at the event so I could be around all these people with gorgeous million-dollar cars that I could never afford and get to see all these pieces of history that were gorgeous and wonderful and everything.

It was just such a fabulous environment. I loved volunteering. The event draws car enthusiasts from around the world and has twice won an award for being the top motoring event in the world. Through the event, I’ve had a chance to meet a lot of the race car drivers I used to watch on TV with my dad when I was a little girl and have my picture taken with them. David Hobbs, who was the main announcer for Formula 1 racing for many years, is someone I’d tried to get an annual picture with for a long time, and I finally did! I even bought a painting by his wife, Mags, at the silent auction there one year that hangs in my living room.

A lot of the cars displayed there in the show on Sunday are historic in that they changed automotive history, are one of very few still surviving, or belong(ed) to celebrities. On Saturday, there’s also an auction of cars that can go for over $1 million. The cover photo on my Facebook page is me sitting in one of the cars you can test-drive there; that particular one is a Porsche, but they have Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Mercedes, and even a Rolls Royce was there one year. As you can see, I could talk about that event almost as much as I can talk about my cats!

 

You’ve been a member of the CWA for a long time. What made you decide to step up as president?

I joined the CWA Council toward the end of 2022. I could see some things that the Cat Writers should probably be doing that they weren’t doing. I’ve found that with anything I’ve been involved with through the years, you don’t learn much about it until you start getting involved. There was so much about the CWA that I didn’t know until I joined the Council. Three months later, they said the president was stepping back and would I step in as president? I wasn’t expecting that, but I thought if I wanted to make a change and have us do certain things I think we should be doing, I could probably do it even better as the president. I said okay and took it on.

This is the 30th anniversary of the CWA conference and awards — can you tell us about them?

Yes, both will be virtual. The conference will be held on Friday and Saturday, October 18-19th.  The keynote speaker will be Amy Shojai, CWA co-founder, who will talk about “Back to the Future…The Next 9 Lives.” There will be a virtual exhibit hall and virtual lounges.  The awards program will be the following weekend, Saturday, October 26th.  As in the past five years, the online awards program will be free to anybody who wants to watch it.

What are the topics covered in the conference?

Andrea Dorn is our conference chair. She’s done a fantastic job both last year and this year, finding a nice, diverse array of speakers that can address topics ranging from freelancing and publishing (including self-publishing, diversity in animal welfare, the latest in feline science and more. We want to have people talking about cats because people want to learn the latest information out there about cat health, cat wellbeing, and cat rescue. Because we are the writer’s association for people who write about cats, we have to have some of that content. Even though it’s available at other conferences and other writers’ conferences, we have things to discuss, such as honing your craft or marketing your work. We try to have a little bit of everything and have at least one session for our artists or photographers.

Back in the early days of the CWA 30 years ago, most of the members were either journalists, book authors, photographers, or artists. We’ve always had photographers and artists. Over the years, that changed to the point where we had more bloggers joining, and now many of our members are involved in cat rescue. When we started, one of our co-founders, Michael Brim, was with the Cat Fanciers Association. A lot of our members were people who exhibited pedigreed cats at shows and were breeders or wrote newsletters for their breed.  As our industry changes, we have to change with it.

For a full list of workshops and registration, visit the CWA website. 

Tickets will be available through October 7th. 

Why a virtual vs. in-person conference?

We were hoping to have a hybrid conference, but the sponsorship and logistics did not work out. The good news is we will be able to accommodate everyone. We are a worldwide organization, so we have members worldwide. We have a member in New Zealand, and we have several in the UK and all over Europe. Not everybody can travel halfway around the world to go to a conference. So, having it virtually has opened it up to a lot of members who couldn’t attend otherwise. And especially now, because even if people can’t attend live, anybody who signs up for the conference gets access to the recordings of all the sessions for 30 days.

I spoke at the conference last year about AI and copyright issues. With the continued growth of generative AI, are cat writer members still concerned about copyright issues? 

I think it’s something that’s evolving and changing so quickly right now that it’s hard for anybody to define it, as you addressed last year in your workshop. It’s very quickly evolving, and we’re still trying to see what it’s all about. It’s like when CBD came out for animals, everybody was saying, “Give your dogs CBD” because everything always comes out first for dogs. Well, that’s fine, but has there been any testing for cats on that? And that’s something that’s still evolving. We’re not sure yet whether we want to advocate for CBD for cats because it’s something that the research just is not there yet.

AI is kind of the same way. What’s going on with it is changing so rapidly. And yes, there are copyright issues, and I think the writers’ unions and some of those organizations are addressing that. We are a much smaller organization and more niche-focused, and I don’t know that it’s our fight to take up. I think we need to keep a pulse, a finger on that pulse, so that we know what is going on.  It’s good to discuss among ourselves.

 

What have been the changes over the years with the CWA contest? Do you have any advice for entrants for 2025?

Katherine Kern has been our contest chair for the last few years, and she does an outstanding job every year. She monitors what types of things are in the marketplace and ensures we have categories for those next year. Our contest works by requiring you to submit work that you published in the previous calendar year. We have to look at what was published that year.

For example, have there been many books published that year? There aren’t always a lot of books being published about cats. We have to look at what’s out there, see what’s in the marketplace, what are we going to get entries for. Sometimes, she consolidates categories or breaks out more categories. If we have many entries in one year, maybe we need to create more categories for that. So, it is something that takes a lot of thought, and Katherine does a great job with it. She runs a very clean and fair contest.

My biggest advice to people who want to submit next year is just to write a lot of good quality stuff and get it published, get it out there. The more stuff you have out there to pull from, the more you’ll have that you can submit for awards next year.  Then, follow through and submit it. Because that’s the thing: You can write a ton of things and be the greatest writer in the world, but if you never submit it for the awards, you’re not going to win them. You’ve got to nominate yourself. You’ve got to enter your work to get the awards.

Do you have a policy regarding whether a work was created in part with AI? 

Absolutely. That’s in our contest rules, which state that we do not accept work that was created by AI. I think most writers use some form of AI; for example, spell-check is AI.  But work that’s created by AI is pretty obvious. I mean, it’s not that good yet. It’s going to get there where people can fake stuff. There are programs you can get that you can run things through it. It’ll tell you whether it’s supposedly AI, but it doesn’t always get things correct. You can’t rely on that. You have to kind of go with your gut and say, does this sound like a human wrote it? And if it doesn’t, then that would be something we wouldn’t consider for an award.

With all these issues swirling around in the publishing world, what would you say are the general benefits of becoming a CWA member?

First off, it’s the networking because you get to know other people who do what you do. We can start talking about our cats sometimes, and people start looking at us kind of funny. But when you get around other people whose work is focused on cats, you can talk about your cats as much as you want to. People don’t look at you funny.

If you want to wear your leopard print or your cat ears to a meeting at a conference, nobody looks at you funny. There is a certain sense of comradery there.

You will also meet people who can help you in a business capacity. We are not just an “I love cats” club. Someone may connect you to an editor at a publication you want to write for with a publisher you want to collaborate with or join a blog.

“CWA members are communications professionals who take our work seriously. Our members include best-selling authors, veterinarians, and journalists who write for some of the top publications and websites. Some of our members have syndicated columns or comics.” 

– Lynn Maria Thompson

Finally, CWA provides a lot of opportunities for people to promote their work. We’re going to be exhibiting at the CFA International Cat Show in October, the second weekend of October. We’ve got several of our authors who are going to be there selling and signing books in our booth. In addition to promoting the CWA, our authors will be there promoting their work.

We also have a book list on our website where all our professional members can list their published books. They can get another link back to wherever they sell their books, which is also good for building your SEO if you’re selling from your website or getting more traffic to your Amazon page or wherever you want to sell your books. We just do things like that that give people opportunities they wouldn’t necessarily have on their own.

There’s power in the CWA community. As I’ve said about our social media reach, individually, you may not have a huge social media reach, but if you look at all the other CWA members out there and add up their followers, we reach millions of people. If we can promote each other and start talking about each other’s work like that, then that gets some good networking going on for each other to help other folks out.

The CWA Web Chats are something new. How are those going?

Andrea Dorn has been running those, and we have people who regularly participate. It’s not always the same people. Depending on the topic, it changes a little bit. But some folks show up for most of them. Those are every other week on Zoom. They change the times around, so people who can’t make it to one might be able to make it to a different time. That’s just another way for our members to stay in touch with each other.

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

Yes, since this is our 30th-anniversary conference, pearls are the traditional 30th wedding anniversary gift. We’re working on a gamification for our conference called a Pearl Hunt. People can get pearls by going to the workshops and by visiting the virtual exhibitor booths in the exhibit hall and answering trivia questions. We’re going to be pulling the trivia questions from the various documents that I’ve circulated to our members this year and in our member directory. We did an outside events guide that showed people some events that they could go to and maybe sell their work or speak or something. There’ll be some from that, some from our sponsor directory, which I’m just getting ready to distribute.

We also have a social media guide for our members which talks about all those different social media platforms, who’s using them and which of our members are the “power users” on them.  There’s going to be information from all those tools I’ve sent out over the year that you can answer trivia questions from during the conference and get extra pearls for your little necklace. When you complete your pearl necklace, you can be eligible for door prizes. It’s very exciting and fun. Something different to do because it’s our 30th-anniversary conference. To register for the conference, click the link below. Remember, the early bird discount prices are valid through August 30, with tickets available at the regular ticket price (still a great value!) through October 7th.

Links:

CWA 2024 Certificate Winners Announced; Goodnewsforpets Award Winner To Be Announced October 26