Things have been quiet over here at A.I. Kemp, at least on the viewer’s side. Over here, life has been pretty chaotic. No doubt, the last couple of months have been rocky, but we’re finally getting back to things.

So far this year, we’ve had one awful event happen every month. Some have been worse than others, but all of them have been pretty terrible. For example, our paternal grandfather (and last remaining grandparent) passed away in February. In March, my cat (and oldest friend) passed away at the ancient age of 23. Both deaths were expected, but I still stayed home and cried my eyes out while grappling with my belief/disbelief in an afterlife.

To be honest, losing my cat, Ivy, was one of the hardest moments in my life. I adopted her from a PetsMart over 19 years ago. She was surrendered to a shelter earlier that year when her family decided to move overseas. My mother tried to encourage me to pick out a much prettier black and gold cat, but when I saw that Ivy was an odd eyed cat, my heart was sold.

I’ve lost track of how many times I moved growing up, but Ivy was always a constant in my life. I loved her to death, even when she was being too prissy for her own good. The few times I had to leave her with my parents as I stayed at college were difficult. When she was younger, she was prone to getting deathly ill when stressed, so I worried about her in my absence. But every time she stopped eating, I would nurse her back to health.

Every time except this last time.

The week leading up to her death was a struggle for me. But on her last night, she did something odd and curled up with the dog. For a year, they’ve done nothing but fight. It seemed like both a small miracle  and a sign that she was ready to go. She had made her peace with the Shih Tzu.

As terrible as it was, there were some good things about March. For example, my husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. And this month, I. Kemp finally quit a soul-sucking job that was preventing her from doing anything related to art. Even better, we felt confident enough to enter Windmill Keepers into a contest for self-published novels. Things are looking up. And it’s about time.

We will be flying home in May to attend my grandfather’s internment and a family reunion, but afterwards, our entire focus will be on the upcoming convention. Utopia Con 2016 is looking like it’s going to be fantastic. We can’t wait to be there, and we can’t wait to be done with Book 2 so that we can finally announce its release.

Happy reading!

~A. Kemp

P.S. This was one of the last photos we took when my cat was well. It’s how I like to remember Ivy.