Cathy T. Colborn

This week: Cathy T. Colborn!

I had the fantastic opportunity to meet Cathy at a recent writer's panel. She has a great personality and is a professor in New Jersey. Take a peek at her comments below!

Name: Cathy T. Colborn

Website: goodreads.com:Cathy T. Colborn

Social Media: Facebook: cathytcolborn

Madame Lola’s Amazon Page

Madame Lola’s Facebook Page

Bizarro Pulp Press Page: (where my next book will be in a few weeks): http://bizarropulppress.com/

Genre: A little of everything, but I excel at fiction with weird or paranormal elements.

Where do you find inspiration?
I find inspiration at attending events with a mix of the arts: Fashion shows, with live bands, and art tables lined up, waiting for patrons. I enjoy open mic readings (where you never know what you’re going to hear or see). I like surprises.

Which character in literature do you associate yourself with the most?
Nick from Gatsby. He is a witness. We all stick around in certain situations in life, and then later, wish that we had made better decisions. I can relate to Nick. I used to let other people ruin my life, by getting caught up in their drama, but not anymore. I am my own person and say and do what I want. But like Nick, I will retell or journal about said crazy antics. So beware.

Which piece of your writing was the most entertaining/enjoyable to write? Why?
I am bound by voodoo to Madame Lola forever. Seriously, all kidding aside, Madame Lola is a good person, she is real to me. I started to write the New Orleans adventure through her female supporting character, but Lola kept whispering in my ear to tell her story. Because it is Steampunk, it is a fictional world during Victorian times, with fun technology all working on steam. Lola makes that historical world a better place, she cleans up the stigmas from the time period that we wish we could go back and clean up, and people fall in love with her. Is it weird that I look for her in Jackson Square and Bourbon Street when I visit the French Quarter? I don’t know, but I won’t stop. I love characters that you don’t want to let go.

Was the first novel you published the first you ever wrote? What was? 
No. I recently finished the first novel I wrote, and it only took me 20 years [insert nervous laughter here]. The first book I published was Madame Lola’s Marvelously Amazing Medicine Show [Wragsink Publishing]. It took me one month to write and went through a number of edits but was published in a few months. I also wrote my latest book, due out any day, Weekly Furapy [Bizarro Pulp Press], over last summer. So, whenever someone tells me a set amount of time to be published, I laugh and say, for me: the novel is done when the novel tells me it is done. I am a firm believer if no one is grabbing it after a few years, then maybe you have to wait until your own life experiences catch up to what’s missing (I’m 45, so there is always something in life to learn). Sometimes that is a few months later, sometimes that is a few years later. But that is what works for me. The sooner I bested my own pride, the more paychecks I’ve deposited. I’m not rich, but I am making progress with my writing.

When I’m not writing I’m usually…
Smoking a cigarillo and sipping a really good bourbon, in a fun town, with my husband and dachshunds in tow.

If you could tell or ask any character in literature or film anything, what would it be? 
Khaleesi, can I ride your dragon?

If you had lived a different life, made different choices, what would you be doing now? 
If I could go back and do it all again, I would actively participate in high school (which I was bored to do the first go around), and then I’d go straight into the Forensic Science program and finish, no matter how long or how much money was involved. I would never give up writing, painting, performing, publishing, or mentoring in any of these arts, so I would still get my MFA in Creative Writing from Rosemont College.

What are five things you couldn’t do without? 
1) family (this includes my baby dachshunds, they are my kids)
2) New Orleans
3) coffee
4) good bourbon
5) good cigars

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Author Bio: Cathy T. Colborn has been published numerous times in fiction, poetry, and essay. She is the author of Madame Lola’s Marvelously Amazing Medicine Show, a New Orleans steampunk novel (WragsInk Publishing), and Weekly Furapy (Bizarro Pulp Press an Imprint of Journalstone Publishing). Catt is currently working in the romance genre. Catt's the creator of Philly Flash Inferno, a literary journal, focused on flash fiction and the seven deadlies. She works as a professor at Atlantic Cape Community College and Camden County Community College, New Jersey. If you wish to summon her: whisper her name three times, and spit some holy water over a candle in the dark, but only after you've read her musings.