Cat and The Dreamer is 10 years old!

~ Annalisa Crawford

How time flies! I remember it when it was just a collection of sentences in a notebook, a random idea, a short story which I couldn’t stop writing.

And now look at it!

If you’re not familiar with my back catalogue, Cat & The Dreamer was the first book I had published. It was my baby, my attempt at a novel because I realised I had to take my writing to the next level (although it never quite made novel-length).

In 2012, well, 2011 when I started submitting it, my youngest child was seven, I’d swapped from working in the library and commuting for an hour a day to working five minutes from home. I was working shifts and had a day off in the middle of the week. All of these things together meant I had much more time than I’d ever had before.

As a novella, it was a risk to submit because ebooks and self-publishing and the rise of small presses who would take advantage of this new technology were still in their comparatively formative stages. Yet, I found a publisher, Vagabondage Press who loved it as much as I did, and the rest is history.

Cat & The Dreamer has suffered over the years. I realised my blurb was a bit rubbish, but when I rewrote it, it wasn’t updated on the retail sites. It used to be available in many places, but now it’s only available on Amazon.

“A must read!“

“Thought-provoking and poignant“

“In my world, I am fifteen, the age I was when I met Rachel Carr, the age I was when Rachel Carr killed herself with a tonne of painkillers and two bottles of rum.”

Julia survived a teen suicide pact: her best friend Rachel did not. Years later, Julia is introvert and insular, spiralling into depression, shrouding herself in daydreams to protect herself from reality – a controlling mother and a huge burden of guilt.

When Adam walks into her office, Julia knows he won’t be interested in her; Cat, her flirty blonde colleague, has already chosen him as her next conquest. But his presence alone is enough to shake Julia up, and make her realise real life could be so much better.

Except Cat has other plans, lurking in Julia’s imagination, torturing her, telling her she should have died too. And she’s right, of course, because Cat is always right.

What are your memories of 2011 and 2012?

Did you watch the Olympic torch weave itself around the UK? Were you glued to the TV when Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space to break the world record for the highest skydive?

Did you buy a novella by a new author and think “Hey, that’s not bad”? 😉

8 thoughts on “Cat and The Dreamer is 10 years old!”

  2. I love Cat and the Dreamer. One of the first “friends” book I ever read. My first book was published in 2012 too. Years ago, I had planned to do something special at the 10 year mark. I suppose I should start thinking on it. That would be this summer!

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    1. 10 years seems like a good time to celebrate, doesn’t it? For me it represents 10 years of some fantastic online friendships, including yours, and the switch from ‘writer’ to ‘author’ – even though I’d been publishing short stories for several years before that, having a book was the next level.

      I think your first book was one of my first ‘friends’ book too xx

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  3. Hi Annalisa – you’ve done really well in the meantime … things proceed as they do.

    You’re right about celebrating the time of ten years ago … the Olympics was brilliant to have here in the UK … so much else happening … also as you remind us all those years of blogging et al where we were able to expand our knowledge and friendships … cheers and good luck for the next 10 years – all the best – Hilary

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  4. I had written my first short story in 2012 and sent it out into the publishing world in 2013 and haven’t stopped since. Congratulations! Definitely worth celebrating 🙂

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