I Have A Secret To Tell You

Hello Friends!

It's an exciting week here at #teammckean. First, Monday was my birthday and NOT, as some think, May The 4th Be With You day, which is misinformation and I've written a letter to get to fix it. And today, Tuesday May 5th is the pub day for my debut picture book PAY ATTENTION TO ME! with amazing illustrations by Rob Justus, published by Sourcebooks Kids! I'm super excited for you all to meet Edgar, and if you're in NYC, come see me read at The Strand on Saturday, May 9th at 11am! All ages welcome! There will be arts & crafts! Free tickets here!

But I've been keeping something from all of you about this picture book and it's time to come clean. I've had lots of readers tell me that Edgar, who will do anything to get your attention, acts just like their cats at home. You know cats so well!, they say. Only a cat lover would understand, they say.

I can honestly say I am a cat lover. I am just not a cat owner. I do not have a cat. I am writing about the cat-having experience second hand because I am hugely allergic to cats (and most things with hair that grow except humans) and as much as my kid, the real-life Quinn from the book, would love a cat, we just can't have one. I am already medicated to the gills with allergy meds daily to combat the other things I'm allergic to (things without hair that grow, except food), so I would be a sniffly, sneezy, itchy-eyed mess if we got a fuzzy, wonderful, loving, aloof cat. I hope you understand and don't hold it against me, or hold it against Edgar.

I did briefly have a cat in graduate school. My friend took in a stray who had kittens almost immediately, and I couldn't resist the tiny little gray one I named Monkey. (I've always had a thing for gray cats.) Monkey lived up to his name. His favorite antic was sitting on my bedside table, looking me straight in the eye, and using his little paw to knock over a full glass of water. No matter how many human words I used to reason with him, he continued to do this! And bite my toes through the sheets. That was kinda funny, if painful. I discovered then and there that I might not be a pet-in-my-house person. Why didn't they speak English and understand what I was telling them??!??!?!? I am a huge fan of other people's pets, but with my allergies and temperament, I'm a better friend to them from afar.

So, how did I write such a convincing book about cats?

This guy:

Going on 20 years ago, someone (I think it was my brother or sister) told me about Icanhascheezburger.com, and I instantly fell in love. For those who weren't there, it was picture of cat + impact font + joke in bad grammar. That's it. Simple, elegant, hilarious. And I knew it would be a great book. Cat books sell! Truly! I literally flew to San Francisco to try to meet with the originators of the site, and doggedly pursued them as clients. If memory serves, they said to me "at first we were weirded out by how much you contacted us, but then we figured that was a quality we wanted in an agent." They signed with me and a few years later the book of the same name would hit the NY Times Best Sellers List. My first! And its follow up did, too. And then we did a half dozen more books, and some calendars, and the site changed hands, and they had a TV show, and eventually, the internet moved on from funny cat memes, and then some stuff happened and everything pivoted to video and here we are. But man, I learned a lot from doing those books, about books with words and without, about publishing and the internet, and about cats.

The first iteration of PAY ATTENTION TO ME! was about a little girl who wanted her cat to be famous on the internet because she loved it so much. And when my editor got ahold of it, she suggested I rewrite it from the POV of the cat. I did hesitate for a minute, worrying that my lack of direct cat parenting experience would get in the way. But it didn't, because not only did I learn a lot about cat behavior and cat owner behavior on the internet, the book isn't only about cats. It's about any of us who is trying to get attention from those we love, and might be going about it in ineffective ways. (Please no one who knew me from the ages of 4-12 comment on this aspect of the story.)

I didn't plan to write a book about this, about cats, about attention. I used the tiny little inside look I had about cats on the internet to write a story, and it became so much more than that. I hope this happens with all my books, that what it's "really" about surprises me as much as it does the reader.

Thank you all for the well wishes this week. It's thrilling to have another pub day, to have the privilege of writing and sharing another book. If you've got some cat fans (or even cats on the internet fans) in your life, big or small, please share this book with them. Find it at your local indie or library or online here at bookshop.org.*

XOXOOXOXOXOX,

Kate

*This is an affiliate link. Any proceeds earned are donated to charity.

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for almost 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of soon to be two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019!