Personal Profile: La Gatta Lucianese

[Katherine Macfarlane]

THE OLD CROWD--INTRO

***Name:
Katherine Macfarlane

***Nicknames/IDs:
Kat, La Gatta Lucianese, Gatta

***Age:
62

***Family:
None to speak to. Relatives are family you get stuck with; friends are
family you give yourself.
Mother to four above-average cats, one of whom is a half-blood bobcat.

***Home
Santa Cruz, California, one of the few places I've found where witches
and wizards can feel at home.

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
October 19, 1943, St. Louis, Missouri (it was an Accident of War).

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
B.A. and M.A. in English; Ph.D. in Greek and Latin Studies; M.S. in
Computer Science with cognate in technical writing.
Taught Classics at Ohio State until 1984; have worked for the last 20
years as a technical writer; am now trying to break into the
textbook-writing industry. Regularly reinvent myself every 20 years or
so; can hardly wait to see what's in store for me when I turn 80.

***Other things we might want to know about you:
Pagan (but not a witch, oddly enough, in spite of the picture on my
Web site). If pushed, will admit to being Athenaean.
Omnivore and darned good cook.
Politics slightly to the left of Governor Moonbeam. Specialties:
Picking fights with real estate developers and chain stores,
especially Wal-Mart and Crown Books.
INTJ and proud of it.
Libra (very well balanced, but have trouble making up my mind).
Started reading spontaneously at about age 3, and am still at it.
Promising talent for dancing cut short by the fact that I can't walk
and chew gum.

***First contact with Harry Potter:
Honestly can't remember; seems like I've always lived in the
Potterverse. I was probably mooching around in Bookshop Santa Cruz
shortly after PS/SS came out and bought it because it looked
interesting and I adore chidren's books. Once in, I was hooked.

***Favourite Potter things (books, characters, ships, fics, objets
d'Art, general enthusing):
The books, of course. In hardback, except for FB and QA.
The first two films on VHS. (Will get the rest on DVD when I get my
DVD player working.)
Professor Snape, with whom I identify strongly, having a like aversion
to teaching dunderheads and goofers. We share a personality type,
which makes for an interesting social life.
Hermione (I *was* Hermione as a girl).
Minerva McGonagall.
Hippogriffs and testrals.
Snape/Hermione forever!
Write my own fan fiction.
Saving up to buy a real wand from Alivan's.

***Extent of Potter obsession:
Intermittently intense.

***Other interests/activities:
Playing the recorder, cooking and writing cookbooks, bird watching,
messing about on the Web, writing, reading, appreciating cats.

***Current/recent reading:
Current favorites:
Crescent (Diana Abu Jaber): Modern Arabian Nights with fairy tales and
food.
Chocolat (Joanne Harris): Now *there's* a witch with a mission.
How the Heather Looks (Joan Bodger): A magical travelogue of classic
children's literature.
A whole grocery bag full of Nevada Barr mysteries (her first one,
Track of the Cat, has a lovely nod to Harry Potter).

Recent favorites:
Devil in the White City (Erik Larson).
The Accidental Tourist (Anne Tyler).
Blood Washes Blood (Frank Viviano).
Japanese Inn (Oliver Statler).
The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd).
That Old Ace in the Hole (E. Annie Proulx).
La Cucina (Lily Prior).

Ongoing favorites:
Anything by E.F. Benson.
Anything by Tracy Chevalier.
Anything by Jane Austen.
Anything by Elizabeth Peters.
Anything by Lindsey Davis.
Anything by Terry Pratchett.

***Current/recent listening:
Classical (lately exploring modern British composers: Elgar, Vaughn
Williams, Butterworth, Delius, Perry).
Ethnic, especially Celtic.

***Current/recent viewing:
TV: Not much. I don't have cable, so am limited to the local station
(high-school football) and a Hispanic soap-opera station in
Watsonville (periodically have friends over to watch it; we turn off
the sound and make up our own dialog. That sort of thing plus a couple
of jugs of good California wine can lead to critical levels of
innocent merriment.)

Videos: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Shakespeare, Jane Austen,
anything by Merchant and Ivory... An acquaintance recently asked me if
I had any *interesting* videos; I offered her Prospero's Books and The
Secret of Ron Inish, and she looked at me very oddly.

***Favorite Websites:
Harry Potter art: 
http://acciobrain.ligermagic.com/
http://www.nocturnalsoldier.org/Tealin/artindex.html
http://www.edgeworlds.com/sb/hp_severus.html
http://www.goldseven.de/
My Web site:
http://www.katmac.cncdsl.com/

--La Gatta Lucianese