August 9, 2024 • 28 mins
To celebrate the launch of the August 2024 issue of Worlds of possibility, here are three poems and an interview with our featured poet, Beth Cato. You can find the text of these at https://www.juliarios.com/three-poems-and-an-interview-with-featured-poet-beth-cato/
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the OMG Julia Podcast, where we discuss creative
lives and processes. Today, I have three poems and an
interview with our featured poet from the August twenty twenty
four issue of Worlds of Possibility, Beth Cato. We'll start
by having Beth read her three poems, and then we'll
(00:21):
have an interview where I talk to her about her
creative process first before we start her Bio Nebula Award
nominated Beth Cato is the author of one thousand Recipes
for Revenge and a Feast for Starving Stone from forty
seven North plus two fantasy series from Harper Voyager. She
(00:45):
is a Hanford, California native, now moored in Red Wing, Minnesota.
She usually has one or two cats in close orbit.
Follow her at Bethcato dot com. That's b E t
Ato dot com, on x Slash, Twitter and blue Sky
at at Bethcato and Instagram as at Catocats and Cheese
(01:13):
all Right. Here is Beth reading her three poems from
the August twenty twenty four issue of Worlds of Possibility.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Junkyard Spaceship by Beth Caato narrated by Beth Cato. Building
a junkyard spaceship means using what you got. Sometimes that
means you make do with a captain's seat that's a
bit too big, or a bent up nose cone you
got a hammer for weeks to get the angles right,
(01:50):
but also means at times things work out just fine,
meaning there's a cockpit nook the perfect size, or a
cat Defiance by Cake by Beth Cato, narrated by Beth Cato.
(02:13):
Some teenagers rebel by partying and drinking. Me. I did
what Mama always said not to do. I walked up
and all where fairies were said to lurk in wait
of humans to steal them away to fairyland. And not
only did I go there, week after week, I carried
up a hamper to hold my own private picnic. My
(02:37):
meals were lonely at first, not that I mind it
that much. The valley view was gorgeous. Within the third week,
a strange man showed up, pale, willowy with yellow eyes
like a cat. I invited him to partake. He did,
(02:59):
reacting with surprise to the teachness of my meat pies.
I took that as a high compliment as I plotted
a larger scale and grander bakes from my receptive audience.
In the coming weeks, he returned, bringing along fay peers
the express surprise at my baking too. To my relief,
(03:21):
they made no outward efforts to lure me away, not
until they offered me an opportunity to bake for the
fairy Queen herself, an honor rarely granted to humans, they said,
as they dusted biscuit crumbs from their vests and corsets.
I politely declined, explaining my goal was to be accepted
(03:43):
as a contestant on a major television baking show, and
that everyone in my family was on a diet or
shunning gluten, so I'd had no one to experiment upon,
and that I'd known from stories that fairies were said
to him have the best food across dimensions. I'd figured
(04:05):
if fairies enjoyed my bakes well, I might have a
chance to win. My new friends were amused and supportive.
They said they could lend magic to my efforts, but
I said no. I wanted to win by my own power,
my own alchemy of sugar and spice. And on that note,
(04:28):
would they be willing to try a zasher Torta an
opera cake next Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
They said, Yes, you.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Are a monster by Beth Cato narrated by Beth Cato.
When the other children were wishing to be firefighters and
teachers when they grew up, you wanted to be a
monster when your teacher said no, becoming a monster is
a terror, rible career goal for a child as kind
(05:01):
as you. You were more determined to make it happen.
You remained as nice as ever as you excelled at
academic work through high school college, when through sheer will
you grew blue fur all over your body, two nubby
gold horns framing your forehead, your eyes wide, your lash
(05:25):
is long, nothing about you the slightest bit scary. You
completed your doctorate in social work, and now you spend
your days helping children process the deeds of the worst
of monsters humans. Kids feel more at ease conversing with
someone like you. Your first soaks in their tears, and
(05:48):
when every so often one says they want to be
a monster when they grow up, you assure them they
can be most anything they want, but they should always
strive to be kind.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
If you want to read the text of those poems,
you can do that at Juliareos dot com by following
the link in your show notes. And now here is
an interview with Beth Cato by me your host, Julia Rios,
in which Beth discusses her creative process. Beth, welcome, Please
tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Hi, Julia, it's great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Ah. Yeah, I'm Beth Cato. I was born and raised
in Canford, California, right in the middle of the state.
I lived in Arizona for quite a long time, and
last year I moved to Minnesota and I'm in red
Wing in the Bluff country there where I have my cats.
And my orange cat Fin just jumped in my lap.
So hopefully you won't cause too much mischief right now.
(06:51):
And yeah, I write poetry, short stories, and I have
a number of books out from different publishers.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Wow, that is quite a big move from Arizona Tonnesota.
How has that been for you? You know, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
We moved last summer and it was a good time
to do it. We escaped Phoenix area right before the
major heat kicked in and had a glorious Midwest summer
and then the experienced what they call the lightest winter
one hundred and fifty years, So it was a great
winter to be here for my introductory winter.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Now, had you ever been in a place that had
heavy winters before?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I'd been in snow maybe five times in my life
and had never driven in it or dealt with sub
zero temperatures at all.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Wow, it was Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Even for this being a very mild, non winter, it
was still a drastic change for me, especially after being
in Arizona for sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So big, big change. I'm glad that you had an
easier winter to sort of adapt. How did you do?
How do you feel about it?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I'm still nervous about the winters. I'm agrophobic. I am
a nervous driver anyway. I only really safely drive within
a very small radius during the daytime, so winter driving
still really terrifies me. But overall, you know, we love
it here. It's gorgeous, it's green. We have about an
acre of property, and we're trying to revive some woodlands
(08:21):
that have quite a few invasive plants in them. So yeah,
in the summertime, when the weather's been nice, that's been
my life, writing during the day and in the evenings,
going out there and battling the.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Evils of Buckthorn.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Wow. So you have been writing for many years at
this point, and I know I've worked with you on
other stories and poems in the past, both for Worlds
of Possibility and other venues. I know you also have
a bunch of novels. Tell me how you got started
with writing.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I was the weird kid from age four. I wanted
to be an author and illustrator when I grew up,
and I kind of kept that dream for a number
of years. I fell into the fantasy genre when I
was about eleven twelve years old, and then really wanted
to be a fantasy author. And then later into my teens,
I had a negative influences on that. A college teacher
(09:15):
who told me that, oh, the fantasy novel I was
reading wasn't a real book. And I had a well
meaning family members who told me that by reading and
writing fantasy, I was going to burn in hell. So
under those kinds of pressures, I stopped reading and writing
fantasy for a number of years and missed it. And
(09:35):
after I gave birth to my son and I was
kind of home alone and I felt like my brain
was rotting out. I was like, you know, from my
mental health, I need to rediscover myself and I need
something to really keep me going. And I decided to
work on being a writer again, and I kind of started,
you know, writing books again. I was told that those
books really had problems, and I realized, okay, I need
(09:59):
to start from scrap. And that's why I started working
on short stories and poetry to really improve my technique.
And I've kept at it for gosh over fifteen years now,
really that I've barely been making an effort at it.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So for you, writing stories and poems came second, and
that was as a way to improve your technique so
that your novels would be better.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Initially, yes, and then I realized I love them both,
and right now I don't have very much time to
do short stories, but I do try and keep up
with the poetry.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Do you find that the stories actually did help you
to improve the novel technique?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
They helped me with brevity, with making every word count
flash fiction in particular, you know that's typically stories that
under fifteen hundred one thousand words. Writing for that format
and making a story function with that word count was
hugely beneficial for me.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you naturally would say that you tend to write long.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I realize is that my brain just creates stories of
different lengths. It's really weird. I know. I have some
friends who will say they start writing a short story
and it ends.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Up being on a vella or even a novel. And
I've never had that issue.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I've when I get an idea, I tend to know, Okay,
this is flash or this is a short story that's
going to be maybe four or five thousand words, or no,
this is definitely a book idea, and I really know
that from the initial concept.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow. So you mentioned that when you were very young
you wanted to be a writer illustrator. Do you still
do drawing?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Not so much. No.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I've dabbled with that a little bit into adulthood, but
that's largely gone by the wayside. I think I've still
done some visual arts. I did quite a bit of
scrap booking for a while, and I do some of
their arts projects every so often, but not nearly as
much as when I was a kid, when I would
make my family's Christmas gifts and start on that in
July and do things like that.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Wow. Okay, So writing for you is that more work
these days than an outlet of creative pleasure or is
it kind of both?
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I think it's both. It is my primary job.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm fortunate enough to have a husband who makes enough
money that he can support us. And then my writing
it's icing on the cake, really, and so I'm free
to write during the day and I treat it as
my work, and it is and you know, right now,
with book contracts, it's definitely you know, you feel the
pressure of that deadline, especially.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
For me coming up in a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Oh dear, So what do you do. Do you have
like a specific routine that you follow or do you
try to get a certain word count each day? What's
a typical writing day like for you?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It really depends on my goals at the time. If
I'm doing a rough draft novel, that is a very
stress filled process for me because I hate writing rough drafts.
I hate knowing how broken they are, and I push
through as quickly as I can well maintaining sanity. There
have been times where I've done a book in like
(13:05):
twenty five days and done, like, you know, ninety thousand
words and I don't remember much about that month. It
is not a healthy process for me. But right now
I try and do a modercle of like twenty five
hundred words a day, and then that way I can
kind of get that done by early afternoon, and then
I have the later part of the day to do
other tasks, do grocery shopping, things like that, and that
(13:27):
seems to work better for me. But I you know,
working on rough drafts is only a small portion of
what I do a lot of the times it's just
really working through the day in chunks and working on
editing and then switching and working on reading research materials
or doing poetry submissions and just kind of breaking things
into chunks. A lot of times, working on my books
(13:48):
does tend to be a morning thing, and then I
use my mid afternoon late afternoon to do other writing
related tasks.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Sure, do you have a dedicated space that you use
for that?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I have my own office, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yea. I can't really work well around other people. I'm
not one of those who could ever set.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Up in a coffee shop or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I cannot work with people around me, So it works
really well to have just my own office. My cats
are usually hanging out nearby, and I can just work
my kitchens nearby, So if I need to put her around,
get something to drink, do baking tasks, whatever, I can do.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
That pretty easily.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, so you're a big baker. We haven't really discussed that,
but it kind of goes along with your defiance by
cake poem. I feel like that's coming from personal experience.
You do a lot of baking, and I know you
post recipes sometimes online or pictures of your bakes. Is
that something that you do to sort of let off steam.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Absolutely, That's definitely another creative outlet for me. I love
baking in particular, and I love sharing what I bake
and cookies, bars, brownies, all kinds of things like that,
just I just love them. I love exploring the world
through flavor. Even when I travel, that's something I do.
I try and seek out regional pastries or different things.
(15:09):
And cheese is another big thing for me, and I
kind of do cheese travel and I try and collect
and keep a log of all the cheeses I try.
So it's all related, and it's just it's really a
way that I take in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're examining the world by taste.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and it's funny a couple of years ago, when
I was diagnosed as an adult with autism, it really
made me realize that throughout my entire life that has
really been a sens realite for me. It has been
really experiencing the world by flavor and texture through my mouth,
and I'd never thought of it that way before. And
then the psychiatrist who diagnosed me was like, yeah, it
(15:49):
really sounds like this is one of your ways of
processing the world, and I was like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It was like complete light bulb moment.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I think that also, the sort of drive to keep
lists of all the cheeses that you've tried is also
kind of part of what I think of as autistic
normal behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I was diagnosed with kind of the value pack of
neurosis years ago, going through you know, depression, agrophobia, generalized
anxiety disorder OCD. Just everything those fit but didn't quite
go far enough. So kind of the diagnosis of being
autistic makes all of those things kind of fit together,
Like oh yeah, okay, now everything.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Makes much more sense.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah. So do you think that your autism influences your
writing and do you think that any of your attitudes
towards your writing has changed since you were diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It really makes me want to write from the autistic
viewpoint through characters more often and bring on authenticity to that.
So that is something I'm working on with some projects
right now, is really using my own unique experience and
writing from that, which for a number of years since
my son was diagnosed at age three, So from very young,
(17:07):
I never felt comfortable really writing about autistic characters to
a degree because I wasn't. I didn't feel like I
had the right representation for that. It wasn't from me.
And now that I feel like I'm diagnosed, it's like, okay, yeah,
I can write from that. And you know, I'm very
different from my son. We're very different people, and I
think that helps give me a much more round viewpoint
(17:27):
of kind of the uniqueness of what it means to
be on the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, so I know that another thing that can crop
up a lot with autism, and also is something that
neurotypical people can experience as well, is burnout and the
idea that you've put yourself. I think it's really common
for autistic people to push themselves super hard and then
kind of reached the end of their rope. Has the
(17:52):
diagnosis made you change the way that you approached like
writing goals or things like that.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It's so help me to be more forgiving with myself
in not quite not so much the realm of writing,
but with what I am capable of doing each day.
I realized many years ago that having like a normal
person job from like nine to five and being among
people all day and leaving the house to do work
(18:23):
is a way for me to completely burn out very fast.
I cannot tolerate being around people like that, and I
cannot tolerate just the energy of being in a place
like that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
I really feel much safer at home.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And that always frustrated me and made me feel like
a failure because all you know, I'm an adult, Like
why can't I do this?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You know, why can't I do this? You know what's
wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And now that I realize, like, Okay, the reason why
writing works for me is because I'm self employed. I
write during hours that work for me. I can flex,
I make my own schedule day to day, and that
helps me to survive. And now I'm like, Okay, now
I realize why those quote normal jobs.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Don't work for me. Right.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So, what are some tips or even just one piece
of advice that you might give to someone who said,
you know, I'm struggling. I've been trying to do a
long writing project and I feel like I've hit a
wall and I just can't do it anymore, but I
want to finish it anyway. What would you tell a
person like that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, I think it really comes down to giving yourself
space to work through it if you can. That's very hard.
If you're working under say a book contract deadline or
a short story anthology call, and there's a deadline for that, that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Complicates things a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But if you're working with your own personal deadlines, sometimes
it really puts things in perspective. To just set up project,
decide for a while, and give your mind time to rest,
do other things, really let yourself heal, because sometimes working
through writing is also means working through trauma and that
(20:16):
takes a lot out of a person. And giving yourself
space to heal, work through it, really think through it,
and then return to it that can make.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
All the difference.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And speaking of writing
and trauma, let's talk a little bit about the monster
poem that you have in this issue. Tell me a
little bit about how you got the idea for that
one and what your process for writing that was Like.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
That one was unusual because it pretty much wrote itself
once I started it. I've had a number of poems
along the lines of a person sometimes clearly defined as
being a woman who is in the process of essentially
going through metamorphosis and recreating themself or herself in defiance
(21:05):
of the assaults of society. And this is really a
different take on that because I grew up with the
Muppets and Sesame Street and loving the idea of that
kind of monster, and I like playing with the idea
of being friends with monsters and you know, essentially living
on Sesame Street and being part of that kind of loving,
(21:29):
diverse community. And this is really playing with those concepts.
It's the idea of you know, oh, you're told you
can't be a monster, Well, fine, I'm going to be
a monster anyway. You know, you can't tell me what
to do, and then doing something with that that is
contrary to expectations and beautiful and just really helps everybody
in a unique way.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I think it's a beautiful poem. So when you
start to write a poem. When you get an idea
for a poem, what's the process like from idea to
finished poem for you? Do you tend to go through
several drafts? Do you tend to write it all at once?
Is it different for every poem.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
I tend to write most of my poems in either
April or November. And I do that because for many
years now, the Writer's Digest poetry blog has done a
poem the Day months during those periods where every day
of the month they post poetry prompts, and I use
that as my inspiration, and so I don't do both
(22:35):
months every year. This year, I did not do April
because I was just underway too much stress and I
knew I would have a trip during that time, so
it wasn't going to work. But I think I've pretty
consistently done November. Gosh, I might have done November for
going back over fifteen years now, but that ends up,
you know. And sometimes if the prompt doesn't click for me,
(22:55):
then I give myself freedom to look at like past
prompts that they've used on the sites, or I have
another file where I've collected prompts and I use those
but the goal is every day I write a rough
draft poem, and then by the end of the month
I go through, and I consider it a good month
if I keep about half of the poems that.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I feel are submittable.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And then I usually will take several days and I'll
go through and I'll revise them all heavily, and I
typically only do one revision pass unless it is an
especially long complex poem, and those may need more time
to work through. But yeah, I typically will go through,
I'll edit the bunch, and then I'll say, Okay, you
know here they are, They're ready to go. And then
(23:38):
so that's how most of my poems are none. And
then every so often I'll see calls for different magazines
or anthologies wanting certain poetry topics, and I'll go, Okay,
that sounds really appealing to me. And then I'll kind
of set time aside and I'll write poems specifically for
those calls. But I haven't had much time to do
too much of.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
That in the past two years.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So for the three poems that we have featured in
the August issue, were those all written at the same
time or were they written in different periods?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Those were all Palm of Day poems. I don't recall
I Think You Are a Monster in Junkyard Spaceship might
have been from the same month, but yeah, they were
all from.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Poem a Day.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Okay, well, that's really kind of cool and exciting. Do
you ever do writing like with other people, whether it's
in person or sort of online with writing sprints or
asynchronously through an online community.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I haven't done writing in person since, largely because I
tend to live in very rural places. I don't have
any other writers around.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
To do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I have published a number of collaborative poems with Ronda Parrish,
who is a dear friend of mine. We've been friends
going back to the Life Journal days low those many
years ago. And yeah, so I've done poems with her,
and she's the only other person I've collaborated with. And again,
that was a Poem a Day thing where we would
pick like, Okay, we're going to work on this together,
(25:08):
and every Tuesday they do a two for Tuesday with
prompts and we would go through and every other week
we would be the one to start, and then we
would we just trade stands as back and forth as
we work on those.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That sounds like a really nice sort of friendship writer activity.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It works really well, and I think, you know, we've
known each other for so long that it really helps
and it's all funny. We started collaborating because we actually
had a hockey bet because I used to follow the
Arizona Coyotes that of course no longer exists now, and
she's a huge Edmonton Oilers fan, and we were betting.
They were playing against each other, so we were like, Okay,
who's going to win?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
And then we we were to poem out of that.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Wow, all right, well, thank you so much for talking
to us. Do you want to tell people where they
might find you or your work online, in stores, in person,
et cetera, and also where someone might want to start
if they're unfamiliar with your.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Work, Well, probably the place to start for everything is
at Bethkato dot com. And Kato is spelled c ato.
It gets misspelled all the time, so I'm trained to
always spell it. But yeah, you go on there, and
I have a short works bibliography that links to all
my short story publications, all of my poetry publications. A
(26:28):
number of things are available to read on there for free.
So that's a really nice freeway to explore my writing
for my books, Amazon and all major retailers. My latest
series begins with the book A Thousand Recipes for Revenge
and it's foody, magic, Musketeers, daringdows, sword fights, horse chases,
(26:48):
the whole bit. And that is a complete series with
two books, So that is out now, and that's also
available in paperback ebook and an audiobook through Audible. A
lot of people are really loving the audiobook.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
So that makes me very happy, wonderful. Well, thank you
again for talking to us, and hopefully we'll all get
to read more of your books as time goes on,
and everybody will enjoy the three poems that you've read
for us today.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Thank you so much, Julia, I really loved talking to
you today.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I hope that you enjoyed listening to Beth narrate her
poems and talk about her creative process as much as
I did. Again, if you want to read the text
of those poems or the text of this interview, it's
all written out for you at Julia Rios dot com.
You can follow a link in your show notes. You'll
also get it if you are a subscriber as part
(27:49):
of the August issue of Worlds of Possibility in ebook format,
so look out for that, and yes, that's going to
do it for me this time. I'm off to Glasgow,
Scotland to go to Worldcon and I'm very excited about that.
So I hope that the month of August is treating
(28:10):
all the rest of you well, and I will catch
you next time.
Welcome to the OMG Julia Podcast, where we discuss creative
lives and processes. Today, I have three poems and an
interview with our featured poet from the August twenty twenty
four issue of Worlds of Possibility, Beth Cato. We'll start
by having Beth read her three poems, and then we'll
(00:21):
have an interview where I talk to her about her
creative process first before we start her Bio Nebula Award
nominated Beth Cato is the author of one thousand Recipes
for Revenge and a Feast for Starving Stone from forty
seven North plus two fantasy series from Harper Voyager. She
(00:45):
is a Hanford, California native, now moored in Red Wing, Minnesota.
She usually has one or two cats in close orbit.
Follow her at Bethcato dot com. That's b E t
Ato dot com, on x Slash, Twitter and blue Sky
at at Bethcato and Instagram as at Catocats and Cheese
(01:13):
all Right. Here is Beth reading her three poems from
the August twenty twenty four issue of Worlds of Possibility.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Junkyard Spaceship by Beth Caato narrated by Beth Cato. Building
a junkyard spaceship means using what you got. Sometimes that
means you make do with a captain's seat that's a
bit too big, or a bent up nose cone you
got a hammer for weeks to get the angles right,
(01:50):
but also means at times things work out just fine,
meaning there's a cockpit nook the perfect size, or a
cat Defiance by Cake by Beth Cato, narrated by Beth Cato.
(02:13):
Some teenagers rebel by partying and drinking. Me. I did
what Mama always said not to do. I walked up
and all where fairies were said to lurk in wait
of humans to steal them away to fairyland. And not
only did I go there, week after week, I carried
up a hamper to hold my own private picnic. My
(02:37):
meals were lonely at first, not that I mind it
that much. The valley view was gorgeous. Within the third week,
a strange man showed up, pale, willowy with yellow eyes
like a cat. I invited him to partake. He did,
(02:59):
reacting with surprise to the teachness of my meat pies.
I took that as a high compliment as I plotted
a larger scale and grander bakes from my receptive audience.
In the coming weeks, he returned, bringing along fay peers
the express surprise at my baking too. To my relief,
(03:21):
they made no outward efforts to lure me away, not
until they offered me an opportunity to bake for the
fairy Queen herself, an honor rarely granted to humans, they said,
as they dusted biscuit crumbs from their vests and corsets.
I politely declined, explaining my goal was to be accepted
(03:43):
as a contestant on a major television baking show, and
that everyone in my family was on a diet or
shunning gluten, so I'd had no one to experiment upon,
and that I'd known from stories that fairies were said
to him have the best food across dimensions. I'd figured
(04:05):
if fairies enjoyed my bakes well, I might have a
chance to win. My new friends were amused and supportive.
They said they could lend magic to my efforts, but
I said no. I wanted to win by my own power,
my own alchemy of sugar and spice. And on that note,
(04:28):
would they be willing to try a zasher Torta an
opera cake next Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
They said, Yes, you.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Are a monster by Beth Cato narrated by Beth Cato.
When the other children were wishing to be firefighters and
teachers when they grew up, you wanted to be a
monster when your teacher said no, becoming a monster is
a terror, rible career goal for a child as kind
(05:01):
as you. You were more determined to make it happen.
You remained as nice as ever as you excelled at
academic work through high school college, when through sheer will
you grew blue fur all over your body, two nubby
gold horns framing your forehead, your eyes wide, your lash
(05:25):
is long, nothing about you the slightest bit scary. You
completed your doctorate in social work, and now you spend
your days helping children process the deeds of the worst
of monsters humans. Kids feel more at ease conversing with
someone like you. Your first soaks in their tears, and
(05:48):
when every so often one says they want to be
a monster when they grow up, you assure them they
can be most anything they want, but they should always
strive to be kind.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
If you want to read the text of those poems,
you can do that at Juliareos dot com by following
the link in your show notes. And now here is
an interview with Beth Cato by me your host, Julia Rios,
in which Beth discusses her creative process. Beth, welcome, Please
tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Hi, Julia, it's great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Ah. Yeah, I'm Beth Cato. I was born and raised
in Canford, California, right in the middle of the state.
I lived in Arizona for quite a long time, and
last year I moved to Minnesota and I'm in red
Wing in the Bluff country there where I have my cats.
And my orange cat Fin just jumped in my lap.
So hopefully you won't cause too much mischief right now.
(06:51):
And yeah, I write poetry, short stories, and I have
a number of books out from different publishers.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Wow, that is quite a big move from Arizona Tonnesota.
How has that been for you? You know, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
We moved last summer and it was a good time
to do it. We escaped Phoenix area right before the
major heat kicked in and had a glorious Midwest summer
and then the experienced what they call the lightest winter
one hundred and fifty years, So it was a great
winter to be here for my introductory winter.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Now, had you ever been in a place that had
heavy winters before?
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I'd been in snow maybe five times in my life
and had never driven in it or dealt with sub
zero temperatures at all.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Wow, it was Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Even for this being a very mild, non winter, it
was still a drastic change for me, especially after being
in Arizona for sixteen years.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So big, big change. I'm glad that you had an
easier winter to sort of adapt. How did you do?
How do you feel about it?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I'm still nervous about the winters. I'm agrophobic. I am
a nervous driver anyway. I only really safely drive within
a very small radius during the daytime, so winter driving
still really terrifies me. But overall, you know, we love
it here. It's gorgeous, it's green. We have about an
acre of property, and we're trying to revive some woodlands
(08:21):
that have quite a few invasive plants in them. So yeah,
in the summertime, when the weather's been nice, that's been
my life, writing during the day and in the evenings,
going out there and battling the.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Evils of Buckthorn.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Wow. So you have been writing for many years at
this point, and I know I've worked with you on
other stories and poems in the past, both for Worlds
of Possibility and other venues. I know you also have
a bunch of novels. Tell me how you got started
with writing.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
I was the weird kid from age four. I wanted
to be an author and illustrator when I grew up,
and I kind of kept that dream for a number
of years. I fell into the fantasy genre when I
was about eleven twelve years old, and then really wanted
to be a fantasy author. And then later into my teens,
I had a negative influences on that. A college teacher
(09:15):
who told me that, oh, the fantasy novel I was
reading wasn't a real book. And I had a well
meaning family members who told me that by reading and
writing fantasy, I was going to burn in hell. So
under those kinds of pressures, I stopped reading and writing
fantasy for a number of years and missed it. And
(09:35):
after I gave birth to my son and I was
kind of home alone and I felt like my brain
was rotting out. I was like, you know, from my
mental health, I need to rediscover myself and I need
something to really keep me going. And I decided to
work on being a writer again, and I kind of started,
you know, writing books again. I was told that those
books really had problems, and I realized, okay, I need
(09:59):
to start from scrap. And that's why I started working
on short stories and poetry to really improve my technique.
And I've kept at it for gosh over fifteen years now,
really that I've barely been making an effort at it.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So for you, writing stories and poems came second, and
that was as a way to improve your technique so
that your novels would be better.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Initially, yes, and then I realized I love them both,
and right now I don't have very much time to
do short stories, but I do try and keep up
with the poetry.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Do you find that the stories actually did help you
to improve the novel technique?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:36):
They helped me with brevity, with making every word count
flash fiction in particular, you know that's typically stories that
under fifteen hundred one thousand words. Writing for that format
and making a story function with that word count was
hugely beneficial for me.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
So you naturally would say that you tend to write long.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
I realize is that my brain just creates stories of
different lengths. It's really weird. I know. I have some
friends who will say they start writing a short story
and it ends.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Up being on a vella or even a novel. And
I've never had that issue.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I've when I get an idea, I tend to know, Okay,
this is flash or this is a short story that's
going to be maybe four or five thousand words, or no,
this is definitely a book idea, and I really know
that from the initial concept.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow. So you mentioned that when you were very young
you wanted to be a writer illustrator. Do you still
do drawing?
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Not so much. No.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I've dabbled with that a little bit into adulthood, but
that's largely gone by the wayside. I think I've still
done some visual arts. I did quite a bit of
scrap booking for a while, and I do some of
their arts projects every so often, but not nearly as
much as when I was a kid, when I would
make my family's Christmas gifts and start on that in
July and do things like that.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Wow. Okay, So writing for you is that more work
these days than an outlet of creative pleasure or is
it kind of both?
Speaker 3 (12:08):
I think it's both. It is my primary job.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm fortunate enough to have a husband who makes enough
money that he can support us. And then my writing
it's icing on the cake, really, and so I'm free
to write during the day and I treat it as
my work, and it is and you know, right now,
with book contracts, it's definitely you know, you feel the
pressure of that deadline, especially.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
For me coming up in a couple of months.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Oh dear, So what do you do. Do you have
like a specific routine that you follow or do you
try to get a certain word count each day? What's
a typical writing day like for you?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
It really depends on my goals at the time. If
I'm doing a rough draft novel, that is a very
stress filled process for me because I hate writing rough drafts.
I hate knowing how broken they are, and I push
through as quickly as I can well maintaining sanity. There
have been times where I've done a book in like
(13:05):
twenty five days and done, like, you know, ninety thousand
words and I don't remember much about that month. It
is not a healthy process for me. But right now
I try and do a modercle of like twenty five
hundred words a day, and then that way I can
kind of get that done by early afternoon, and then
I have the later part of the day to do
other tasks, do grocery shopping, things like that, and that
(13:27):
seems to work better for me. But I you know,
working on rough drafts is only a small portion of
what I do a lot of the times it's just
really working through the day in chunks and working on
editing and then switching and working on reading research materials
or doing poetry submissions and just kind of breaking things
into chunks. A lot of times, working on my books
(13:48):
does tend to be a morning thing, and then I
use my mid afternoon late afternoon to do other writing
related tasks.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Sure, do you have a dedicated space that you use
for that?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I have my own office, thank goodness.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yea. I can't really work well around other people. I'm
not one of those who could ever set.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Up in a coffee shop or anything like that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
I cannot work with people around me, So it works
really well to have just my own office. My cats
are usually hanging out nearby, and I can just work
my kitchens nearby, So if I need to put her around,
get something to drink, do baking tasks, whatever, I can do.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
That pretty easily.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, so you're a big baker. We haven't really discussed that,
but it kind of goes along with your defiance by
cake poem. I feel like that's coming from personal experience.
You do a lot of baking, and I know you
post recipes sometimes online or pictures of your bakes. Is
that something that you do to sort of let off steam.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Absolutely, That's definitely another creative outlet for me. I love
baking in particular, and I love sharing what I bake
and cookies, bars, brownies, all kinds of things like that,
just I just love them. I love exploring the world
through flavor. Even when I travel, that's something I do.
I try and seek out regional pastries or different things.
(15:09):
And cheese is another big thing for me, and I
kind of do cheese travel and I try and collect
and keep a log of all the cheeses I try.
So it's all related, and it's just it's really a
way that I take in the world.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You're examining the world by taste.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, and it's funny a couple of years ago, when
I was diagnosed as an adult with autism, it really
made me realize that throughout my entire life that has
really been a sens realite for me. It has been
really experiencing the world by flavor and texture through my mouth,
and I'd never thought of it that way before. And
then the psychiatrist who diagnosed me was like, yeah, it
(15:49):
really sounds like this is one of your ways of
processing the world, and I was like, whoa.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
It was like complete light bulb moment.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I think that also, the sort of drive to keep
lists of all the cheeses that you've tried is also
kind of part of what I think of as autistic
normal behavior.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I was diagnosed with kind of the value pack of
neurosis years ago, going through you know, depression, agrophobia, generalized
anxiety disorder OCD. Just everything those fit but didn't quite
go far enough. So kind of the diagnosis of being
autistic makes all of those things kind of fit together,
Like oh yeah, okay, now everything.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
Makes much more sense.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah. So do you think that your autism influences your
writing and do you think that any of your attitudes
towards your writing has changed since you were diagnosed.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It really makes me want to write from the autistic
viewpoint through characters more often and bring on authenticity to that.
So that is something I'm working on with some projects
right now, is really using my own unique experience and
writing from that, which for a number of years since
my son was diagnosed at age three, So from very young,
(17:07):
I never felt comfortable really writing about autistic characters to
a degree because I wasn't. I didn't feel like I
had the right representation for that. It wasn't from me.
And now that I feel like I'm diagnosed, it's like, okay, yeah,
I can write from that. And you know, I'm very
different from my son. We're very different people, and I
think that helps give me a much more round viewpoint
(17:27):
of kind of the uniqueness of what it means to
be on the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, so I know that another thing that can crop
up a lot with autism, and also is something that
neurotypical people can experience as well, is burnout and the
idea that you've put yourself. I think it's really common
for autistic people to push themselves super hard and then
kind of reached the end of their rope. Has the
(17:52):
diagnosis made you change the way that you approached like
writing goals or things like that.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
It's so help me to be more forgiving with myself
in not quite not so much the realm of writing,
but with what I am capable of doing each day.
I realized many years ago that having like a normal
person job from like nine to five and being among
people all day and leaving the house to do work
(18:23):
is a way for me to completely burn out very fast.
I cannot tolerate being around people like that, and I
cannot tolerate just the energy of being in a place
like that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
I really feel much safer at home.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
And that always frustrated me and made me feel like
a failure because all you know, I'm an adult, Like
why can't I do this?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You know, why can't I do this? You know what's
wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
And now that I realize, like, Okay, the reason why
writing works for me is because I'm self employed. I
write during hours that work for me. I can flex,
I make my own schedule day to day, and that
helps me to survive. And now I'm like, Okay, now
I realize why those quote normal jobs.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Don't work for me. Right.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So, what are some tips or even just one piece
of advice that you might give to someone who said,
you know, I'm struggling. I've been trying to do a
long writing project and I feel like I've hit a
wall and I just can't do it anymore, but I
want to finish it anyway. What would you tell a
person like that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Well, I think it really comes down to giving yourself
space to work through it if you can. That's very hard.
If you're working under say a book contract deadline or
a short story anthology call, and there's a deadline for that, that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Complicates things a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
But if you're working with your own personal deadlines, sometimes
it really puts things in perspective. To just set up project,
decide for a while, and give your mind time to rest,
do other things, really let yourself heal, because sometimes working
through writing is also means working through trauma and that
(20:16):
takes a lot out of a person. And giving yourself
space to heal, work through it, really think through it,
and then return to it that can make.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
All the difference.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And speaking of writing
and trauma, let's talk a little bit about the monster
poem that you have in this issue. Tell me a
little bit about how you got the idea for that
one and what your process for writing that was Like.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
That one was unusual because it pretty much wrote itself
once I started it. I've had a number of poems
along the lines of a person sometimes clearly defined as
being a woman who is in the process of essentially
going through metamorphosis and recreating themself or herself in defiance
(21:05):
of the assaults of society. And this is really a
different take on that because I grew up with the
Muppets and Sesame Street and loving the idea of that
kind of monster, and I like playing with the idea
of being friends with monsters and you know, essentially living
on Sesame Street and being part of that kind of loving,
(21:29):
diverse community. And this is really playing with those concepts.
It's the idea of you know, oh, you're told you
can't be a monster, Well, fine, I'm going to be
a monster anyway. You know, you can't tell me what
to do, and then doing something with that that is
contrary to expectations and beautiful and just really helps everybody
in a unique way.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Yeah, I think it's a beautiful poem. So when you
start to write a poem. When you get an idea
for a poem, what's the process like from idea to
finished poem for you? Do you tend to go through
several drafts? Do you tend to write it all at once?
Is it different for every poem.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
I tend to write most of my poems in either
April or November. And I do that because for many
years now, the Writer's Digest poetry blog has done a
poem the Day months during those periods where every day
of the month they post poetry prompts, and I use
that as my inspiration, and so I don't do both
(22:35):
months every year. This year, I did not do April
because I was just underway too much stress and I
knew I would have a trip during that time, so
it wasn't going to work. But I think I've pretty
consistently done November. Gosh, I might have done November for
going back over fifteen years now, but that ends up,
you know. And sometimes if the prompt doesn't click for me,
(22:55):
then I give myself freedom to look at like past
prompts that they've used on the sites, or I have
another file where I've collected prompts and I use those
but the goal is every day I write a rough
draft poem, and then by the end of the month
I go through, and I consider it a good month
if I keep about half of the poems that.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
I feel are submittable.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
And then I usually will take several days and I'll
go through and I'll revise them all heavily, and I
typically only do one revision pass unless it is an
especially long complex poem, and those may need more time
to work through. But yeah, I typically will go through,
I'll edit the bunch, and then I'll say, Okay, you
know here they are, They're ready to go. And then
(23:38):
so that's how most of my poems are none. And
then every so often I'll see calls for different magazines
or anthologies wanting certain poetry topics, and I'll go, Okay,
that sounds really appealing to me. And then I'll kind
of set time aside and I'll write poems specifically for
those calls. But I haven't had much time to do
too much of.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
That in the past two years.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
So for the three poems that we have featured in
the August issue, were those all written at the same
time or were they written in different periods?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Those were all Palm of Day poems. I don't recall
I Think You Are a Monster in Junkyard Spaceship might
have been from the same month, but yeah, they were
all from.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Poem a Day.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Okay, well, that's really kind of cool and exciting. Do
you ever do writing like with other people, whether it's
in person or sort of online with writing sprints or
asynchronously through an online community.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I haven't done writing in person since, largely because I
tend to live in very rural places. I don't have
any other writers around.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
To do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
I have published a number of collaborative poems with Ronda Parrish,
who is a dear friend of mine. We've been friends
going back to the Life Journal days low those many
years ago. And yeah, so I've done poems with her,
and she's the only other person I've collaborated with. And again,
that was a Poem a Day thing where we would
pick like, Okay, we're going to work on this together,
(25:08):
and every Tuesday they do a two for Tuesday with
prompts and we would go through and every other week
we would be the one to start, and then we
would we just trade stands as back and forth as
we work on those.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
That sounds like a really nice sort of friendship writer activity.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It works really well, and I think, you know, we've
known each other for so long that it really helps
and it's all funny. We started collaborating because we actually
had a hockey bet because I used to follow the
Arizona Coyotes that of course no longer exists now, and
she's a huge Edmonton Oilers fan, and we were betting.
They were playing against each other, so we were like, Okay,
who's going to win?
Speaker 3 (25:41):
And then we we were to poem out of that.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Wow, all right, well, thank you so much for talking
to us. Do you want to tell people where they
might find you or your work online, in stores, in person,
et cetera, and also where someone might want to start
if they're unfamiliar with your.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Work, Well, probably the place to start for everything is
at Bethkato dot com. And Kato is spelled c ato.
It gets misspelled all the time, so I'm trained to
always spell it. But yeah, you go on there, and
I have a short works bibliography that links to all
my short story publications, all of my poetry publications. A
(26:28):
number of things are available to read on there for free.
So that's a really nice freeway to explore my writing
for my books, Amazon and all major retailers. My latest
series begins with the book A Thousand Recipes for Revenge
and it's foody, magic, Musketeers, daringdows, sword fights, horse chases,
(26:48):
the whole bit. And that is a complete series with
two books, So that is out now, and that's also
available in paperback ebook and an audiobook through Audible. A
lot of people are really loving the audiobook.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
So that makes me very happy, wonderful. Well, thank you
again for talking to us, and hopefully we'll all get
to read more of your books as time goes on,
and everybody will enjoy the three poems that you've read
for us today.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Thank you so much, Julia, I really loved talking to
you today.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
I hope that you enjoyed listening to Beth narrate her
poems and talk about her creative process as much as
I did. Again, if you want to read the text
of those poems or the text of this interview, it's
all written out for you at Julia Rios dot com.
You can follow a link in your show notes. You'll
also get it if you are a subscriber as part
(27:49):
of the August issue of Worlds of Possibility in ebook format,
so look out for that, and yes, that's going to
do it for me this time. I'm off to Glasgow,
Scotland to go to Worldcon and I'm very excited about that.
So I hope that the month of August is treating
(28:10):
all the rest of you well, and I will catch
you next time.
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