Q&A with Sara Lundberg

 

Photo by Ola Kjellbye

 

 

Sara Lundberg is the author and illustrator of the new children's picture book The Cat Way. Her other books include The Bird in Me Flies. She is based in Stockholm, Sweden.

 

Q: What inspired you to create The Cat Way?

 

A: The idea came from my lovely cat Sassa. She taught us a lot about life. She loved to go for walks, without a leash, and we would play hide and seek with her. There was always a fear of her disappearing, and sometimes she would be gone for a while.

 

One day my son took her for a walk and she disappeared. He ran home in despair, and we went looking for her. Maybe she was gone for about 20 minutes total. Not long. But we were all devastated and immensely happy when she showed up again.

 

After that experience, I wrote the first part. Unfortunately, she is not with us anymore. This book is an homage to her.

 

Q: Did you work on the text first or the illustrations first--or both simultaneously?

 

A: I always write the story first, then I make the pictures. But, of course, I go back and forth until the book is finished. There is always an interesting balance between text and image to really pull out the very best for the story.

 

This book took quite some time to finish. I wrote the first part in 2019 and submitted it to my publisher. I was working on another book at the time that I had to finish before diving back into The Cat Way. And when I started working on it a year or so later, I wrote the second part.

 

My family and I were hiking in the Sierras and we got lost. Not severely, just a little lost. And during our stay there we experienced an amazing starry sky. And that gave me the idea for the second part. The book came out the spring of 2023 in Sweden.

Q: The Kirkus review of the book called it a "lovingly told exploration of compromise leading to a new outlook on life." What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think it is an accurate description. It is a story about how important it is to be open to the wild, intuitive side, to have the courage to step outside your safe box and get a little lost. You might discover something wonderfully surprising.

 

The story is about relationships and to let go of the need to control the other. To find balance. Ultimately, it boils down to the question of what it is to love each other.

 

Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book?

 

A: I crawled around on my fours in the woods to get the cat’s view. I took a lot of pictures of the area where I live—houses, cars, parks—to get the right environment for the first part of the story.

 

I studied nature. To me, it is important that trees and plants are accurately defined. Of course, it can be mixed with fantasy or more abstract plants and flowers. But nothing beats the creativity of nature, and it is a lot of fun to study it.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’ve just finished a book written by Sara Stridsberg. This is our second book together. She wrote Summer of Diving a couple of years ago, and I illustrated it.

 

This time, it is a story about two wolves playing hide and seek outside. It’s a story about being separated from the one you love, and the deep longing for the other. I made the illustrations with oily crayons this time and had a lot of fun with it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The Royal Theatre in Stockholm, Sweden has decided to adapt The Cat Way for the stage, and it will premiere in December of this year. I am very excited about that.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb