Black and white tuxedo cat caught on dining room table
Josie Cat says hello

A history of writers is also a history of the creature companions, furry familiars, and meowing mewses. (I’d better get this out of the way: I adore alliteration and no pun is too punishing. I won’t even apologize.) Let’s consider, for a moment, the long tradition of writing with cats.

Whatever damage the 2019 film Cats did to his feline-friendly legacy, T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats remains a poetic testament to the personality and mysterious secret lives of cats. If you spend time with cats, Eliot’s description rings perfectly true:

 When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
     The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
 His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
     Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
         His ineffable effable
         Effanineffable
 Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Some cat non-fanciers may argue kitty is meditating on treats or murder, but let’s indulge Eliot this time. The poor guy’s grave is still spinning from that CGI nightmare in 2019.

Eliot isn’t the only contribution to the kitty literary canon. Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Cat in the Rain,” lingers in literature books like contagious loneliness.

Meanwhile, descendants of his famous six-toed cats still roam his former home in Key West. The Hemingway Home and Museum estimates the current population may be as high as 60, which means an extravagance of toe beans.

LitHub, among others, has featured great lists of cat-lit. I’m just thankful that Emily Temple, the LitHub author and editor, specified, “15 Great Cat Poems Not Written By Cats.” Thanks to Zoom and the pandemic, we know the lines between us can be a little . . . fuzzy. (I will not apologize for the puns, I will not apologize . . .)

Josie the tuxedo kitten stretches while standing on a laptop keyboard.
What? She’s helping!

Writing with cats isn’t all catnip and cuddles. Even medieval monks endured cats getting where cats shouldn’t be.

The next time a kitty settles on your laptop, renaming your files, sending cryptic “chat” messages with her butt? This story about inky prints on a manuscript may give you “paws” . . . And remember, it can always be worse.

No manuscript is safe from a curious kitten. Fortunately, no heart is safe, either.