Kitty Johnson's Blog - Posts Tagged "kitty-johnson"
Happy Birthday, Prickly!
Last week marked one year since my novel PRICKLY COMPANY was published. The time seems to have flashed past since I wrote this story about a community trying to make life easier for local hedgehogs and dealing with the dramas that take place as a result!
When I set out to write Prickly, I’d just read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere. I loved that story for so many reasons, but one thing I found really inspiring was the way that Shaker Heights, the setting for the book, was almost seen from above at times - as if the people and events were like ants, and then we zoomed in closer and they became people. Shaker Heights and all it stood for was like a character in itself.
I decided I wanted to do something similar with PRICKLY COMPANY; that I would show the reader the community in its entirety - people, hedgehogs and all - and then swoop down into - mainly human- viewpoints. As I wrote the novel, the occasional hedgehog perspective crept in too. I wanted these perspectives to be many things - sometimes amusing and entertaining, occasionally sad and moving, but also educational. I had things to say about how hedgehogs live and how human habits affect them, and I wanted to tell the reader about these things in a way that was part of the story.
I had a lot to say about people too, and the way that, all too often, we keep our pain and struggles hidden from each other when, possibly, if we were more open, we might get help and understanding from the most unexpected sources.
It was a lot of fun to write.
So, Happy Birthday, Prickly!
When I set out to write Prickly, I’d just read Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere. I loved that story for so many reasons, but one thing I found really inspiring was the way that Shaker Heights, the setting for the book, was almost seen from above at times - as if the people and events were like ants, and then we zoomed in closer and they became people. Shaker Heights and all it stood for was like a character in itself.
I decided I wanted to do something similar with PRICKLY COMPANY; that I would show the reader the community in its entirety - people, hedgehogs and all - and then swoop down into - mainly human- viewpoints. As I wrote the novel, the occasional hedgehog perspective crept in too. I wanted these perspectives to be many things - sometimes amusing and entertaining, occasionally sad and moving, but also educational. I had things to say about how hedgehogs live and how human habits affect them, and I wanted to tell the reader about these things in a way that was part of the story.
I had a lot to say about people too, and the way that, all too often, we keep our pain and struggles hidden from each other when, possibly, if we were more open, we might get help and understanding from the most unexpected sources.
It was a lot of fun to write.
So, Happy Birthday, Prickly!
