Margaret Mills publishes her debut novel at the age of 91, The Nine Lives of Kitty K.
Tell us a little about The Nine Lives of Kitty K
Kitty Kirk was a strong woman in a time when a woman alone had to struggle to survive. She had an interesting childhood, very typical of pioneering life in Otago, except that when at the age of 12 she met horses for the first time and discovered that she was a horse whisperer.
Her new-found skill brought her both fame and money but estranged her from her mother who strongly believed in ‘keeping your place’ so much that Kitty, at the age of 15, rushed into a disastrous marriage with John Craig a timber worker who needed a wife to get the job. He also was a heavy drinker who kept his family short of money so Kitty had to find ways of earning her own secret stash.
They had four children, three daughters and one son, who died at the age of eight, and the marriage became impossible. When two of her daughters died in a boating accident, Kitty left Kinloch. She was now 35 years old and had to earn a living on her own.
What inspired you to write this book?
I was inspired to write about Kitty when I was 47 and living in Queenstown. Miss Winnie Mulholland had promised her mother she would ‘get the story out’ about Kitty and I got the job. Over the next six months or I spent many afternoons listening to Winnie and her friends talking about Kitty. I later discovered there hadn’t been much fact, just a lot of gossip. In 2016 I realised it was about time I got Kitty’s story out, so I proceeded to do so.
What research was involved?
The research was huge. My thanks go to two people, Anne Maguire, archivist at the Lakes District who was untiring answering my questions and my son, Brett Mills, who delighted in finding out facts and ruining bits of perfectly good fiction. I couldn’t have written it without either.
What was your routine when writing this book?
I am a habitually early riser, always have been, and from the time I started writing again, I had my early cup of tea (all set up so that I could have it without getting out of bed) and then I started work. The story seemed to have come together in my sleep and all I needed to do was wrestle with the computer to transfer it to the page. After all, it had been in my head for years.
What did you enjoy the most about writing this novel?
That I was writing a story that I had been carrying around in my head for 40 years and I was fulfilling a promise to ‘get Kitty’s story out’. It never became a chore. It took me 14 months to finish, and 27 drafts before I was satisfied.
