HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You can tell she's fascinating. Just look at that photo! And when she had an idea for a novel, it was a doozy.
We'll just let Ilana tell you!
My passions, friends, experiences, and clothes are
eclectic. Even my name Ilana Katz Katz is unusual. (My middle name was Katz and
I married a Katz… what are the chances of that?) I don't think there is a
cookie cutter out there that could begin to reflect the shape of my life. It's
no wonder that food for thought comes where I least expect it.
I would have predicted that my most interesting storytelling
inspirations would come from my experiences as a musician in Boston’s subway
system. I play old-time and blues fiddle to entertain passersby waiting for the
trains.
The subway hosts the gamut of people from the homeless
to the manicured businessperson. With music bridging the gap between strangers
and friends, people often talk to me in between fiddle tunes revealing the
secrets of their lives. Many of their experiences stay with me, but it was a
routine trip to the vet that most sparked my imagination. I would never have
guessed that would be the case.
“Fixed male cats have the best temperaments,” Dr. S
said while examining my newly adopted rescue kitty. “Imagine if our world was
run by castrated men,” she said with a laugh. I have to admit that I was initially
a little horrified at her suggestion, but it did get my mind spinning. What if women ran the world? Would there really
be less war? Less violence in general? Would negotiations for social rights and
religion be different or any better? I looked for answers and found some pretty
interesting information.
Through the early 1900s the average age of sexual
consent for girls in most states was 10-12 with Delaware weighing in at the age
of seven. Really? Seven? I seriously doubt a woman declared that a seven-year
old child could reasonably consent to, let alone engage in, sexual activity. But
I can tell you in the late 1880s, a group of mostly women started to chip away
at these laws. By 1920, most states succeeded in changing the legal age of consent
to 16-18.
This fueled my wonder. Nearly a hundred years later,
what kinds of changes would an all-woman power structure initiate around the
globe? I wonder if the similar hierarchy, values, and struggles we see today
would morph out of the women over time.
I’d like to believe that having world-wide female
leaders would yield a better world, perhaps a more humanitarian place. Of
course we don’t know what would really happen, but I wish we did!
Since I doubt
my lifetime will show me a women-ruled globe, I explored this by writing The Underground: Imagine a world where women
rule and men must cater to their every whim… or else. The story is set in
the backdrop of the futuristic dystopian America run by an iron-fisted Queen.
Under the guise of ending sexual assaults against women, she requires unmarried
twenty-six-year old men to be castrated. To further diminish men’s rights,
women are the only ones who can legally propose marriage.
I enjoyed coming up with this story, but the
flipside of developing fictional characters is that people reading my work
insert me into my books assuming it was somehow autobiographic. I find myself
having to say, "No, I am not a man-hating dictatorial extremist with
scalpel happy tendencies. I'm just a happily married storyteller with a
dystopian bend.”
I never know where my next story idea will come
from, but enjoy pondering the possibilities of situations that stretch my
imagination. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, no matter
where I am.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I hesitate even to mention it. But a world ruled by women? What if...
**************************
In addition to being a novelist, Ilana can often be found
playing fiddle in Boston’s underground subways. (Park Street, on the Green Line
is a favorite station.) She lives in
Boston, MA and Newport, RI with her husband Warren and adorably lazy felines
Boris and Squeaky. Her debut novel The
Underground is available at Amazon.com,
as an ebook and in paperback. She’ll be releasing her second novel Finding
Jayne later this year. For more
information about Ilana and her books, see ilanakatz.com.
