TUCSON, Ariz. — Cat-lovers from across Tucson lined up at the Bookman's at East River Road and North Stone Avenue on the northwest side—many in cat ears or shirts, eager to get an early copy of Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats.
The book, releasing in the United States on April 29, is the work of a Tucson-based activist, influencer and animal advocate Courtney Gustafson.
Around four years ago, Gustafson said she created an account on Instagram to share the stories of stray cats she found nearby in her Midtown neighborhood, Poets Square.
"I found 30 stray cats living outside my house," she said. "I became really obsessed with taking care of them and giving them silly names. I wanted to share those stories with the world.”
That's exactly what she did. Gustafson shared video and pictures along with lengthy captions explaining the cats' day-to-day lives, social dynamics and medical issues. Eventually, the account on TikTok reached over a million followers, helping share neighborhood problems with a national audience.
“People seemed to love those cats as much as I did,” Gustafson said.
Her advocacy reached beyond the screen, according to a local team of "Eartaggers," a term describing the tipped left ear left on a spayed or neutered stray cat.
“When I first started the program, I didn’t have a lot of people that were trapping with me," said Angeline Fahey. She started the TNR, or Trap-Neuter-Return, program for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.
She says Gustafson was one of her first volunteers.
“The advocacy that she has done is everything," Fahey said. "This is more than just cats needing to be spayed and neutered, this is community work.”
Last year, the team says they trapped 3,200 cats.
For Gustafson, a self-described prolific writer, a book was the natural next step for raising awareness for TNR and similar programs.
“It just made sense to write something longer-form where I can share even more about my thoughts on the cats and the things they can teach us about community,” she said.
What can a cat teach us, humans, about community?
According to Gustafson, “patience and empathy."
But more importantly, she says, "working with feral cats in the community has introduced me to so many people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.”
Poets Square: A Memoir in 30 Cats will be out across the country on April 29.
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Alex Dowd is a multimedia journalist at KGUN 9, where her work combines her two favorite hobbies: talking to new people and learning about the community around her. Her goal is to eventually meet every single person in Tucson. Share your story ideas with Alex via email, alex.dowd@kgun9.com, or connecting on Instagram or X.
