WHISKERS ABROAD

Ashi and Audrey’s Adventures in Japan

by CARRIE CARTER

Graphic Designer: Stacy Vickers

Fiction / Travelogue / Japan

Publisher: Bayou City Press

Pages: 170 pages

Publication Date: October 6, 2022

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Whiskers Abroad is a lively and charming travelogue featuring a trip to Japan shared by two main characters, Audrey and Ashi, who alternate recounting their versions of events. Audrey, having won the chance to write a magazine article about traveling in Japan, takes along her cat, Ashi. Over the course of a twelve-day trip, the pair visit Tokyo, Wakayama, Shirahama, Kyoto, and Miura Peninsula. Food is of great interest to both, as they sample typical Japanese dishes from ramen to sushi to tuna specialties. They also explore Japanese culture, including food markets, a family farm, temples, and Tokyo nightlife.

Adventures abound, from Audrey losing Ashi in the fish market to Ashi slipping out of the hotel at night to go to a cat café, where he meets an alluring feline. Audrey is still trying to find her place in the universe, while Ashi believes Audrey would sink beneath the waves were he not present to rescue her time and again. Audrey is a dedicated reader of her horoscope, and the prediction for each day offers tantalizing clues as to what’s in store for the pair.

Written by author Carrie Carter and beautifully designed by Stacy Vickers, Whiskers Abroad is both an amusing travel story with unforgettable characters but also a useful guide for tourists going to Japan about such basic travel issues as how to get from the airport to central Tokyo, how to purchase a rail pass, what to visit in Tokyo, and what to eat. Lavishly designed with full-color photographs and arresting page layouts, Whiskers Abroad will delight both your eyes and your sense of adventure.

INTERVIEW WITH CARRIE CARTER

Where did your love of storytelling come from?  

When I was a young kid, my dad would tell me stories right before I went to bed, and it left a big impression. He thought I didn’t pay attention because I would run around the room while he talked, but I was listening. To this day, I can repeat back several of the stories.

How do you write? Any backstory to your choice?

I use a Gigabyte Aorus 15 gaming laptop, which is overkill for typing up documents and checking my email, but it has the best keyboard of any laptop. It has Omron Mechanical Blue Switches, which give amazing feedback and an audible clicking sound when pressed. Totally worth it.

How important are names to you in your books? How do you choose names?  

I picked the name Audrey for the woman because I’ve always liked that name. There’s no other reason. Ashi was picked because that’s the name of the cat actually used in the photos. Ashi means “foot” or “paw” in Japanese. It seemed suitable to use him for a book about a cat traveling in Japan.

Do you have any research rabbit-hole stories?  

The locations in Whiskers Abroad were all places that I had been while visiting Japan. However, I did double-check spellings, websites, and such by doing research on the internet. If it had anything to do with food, I would spiral down the rabbit hole as I found myself staring at pictures of Japanese food for hours. I couldn’t stay on track. I mean, besides looking delicious, the images are beautiful.

What are some day jobs that you have held? Have any of them impacted your writing? 

I’ve had a string of unrelated jobs, in no particular order: event coordinator; cemetery monument, footstone, and headstone sales and designs; PBX operator; Division Order Analyst in Oil and Gas; banquet server; and wardrobe assistant. None of them was a right fit, and they caused me misery. I knew I wanted to be a writer, and these horrible jobs finally pushed me to sit down and get serious about it and write.

What is your favorite quote?  

I know most people pick a quote that’s inspiring or meaningful, but my favorite quote brilliantly describes something that’s a perceived trainwreck. “It was like an explosion in a cesspool.”  I can’t think of a more perfect way of describing something that causes one’s disdain to bubble up. Paul Elmer More wrote this in a critique of Dos Passo’s Manhattan Transfer.

What is something you want to accomplish before you die? 

I would like to sell a screenplay that goes into production. I would love to see the final movie on the big screen. Unless, of course, it’s really horrendous. Then I don’t want to see it in a movie theater. Maybe on Netflix instead, no, make that Amazon Prime.

Carrie Carter has a profound love for Japan, cats, sumo, dioramas, and eating unusual foods. She has traveled with her husband Jim to Japan fourteen times, so her numerous holidays across her favorite country were the inspiration for her first book, Whiskers Abroad: Ashi and Audrey’s Adventures in Japan. Carrie has run multiple marathons including the Tokyo Marathon, and as expected, Carrie and Jim live with an adorable cat named Frenemy, who was unhappy at not being selected as the model for the book.

Carrie lives in Houston, Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. At home, she loves to cook, design/create Halloween costumes, and daydream about meeting Jacques Pepin. She dislikes overly dramatic music used in reality TV shows. Currently, Carrie is working on her second book, a sequel to Whiskers Abroad, where Audrey and Ashi explore further into Japan and get themselves into even more interesting predicaments.

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