Cartoonist Tami Knight chats with me today about her collection of 40-years of cartoons for climbers, Secret Plans: Vol. III.
During her virtual book tour, Tami will be giving away a $15 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly chosen participant. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Tami Knight started rock climbing and mountaineering in 1977. She had always enjoyed comics and cartoons and, by 1981, she created a cartoon rat climber. Friends seemed to enjoy reading the silly things the rat climbers got up to which inspired Knight to draw more. Rats that is. Over the next 45 years, Knight continued to draw and publish rat (and some humanoid) cartoons for climbers. The work has been published all over the climbing world; one of her books was even found at a research station in Antarctica. She has been a longtime contributor to Alpinist Magazine (USA) and was the recipient of the 2003 American Alpine Club Literary Prize.
Welcome, Tami, please tell us about your current release.
This book is 200+ cartoons I’ve drawn over the past four plus decades. It’s the first time the work has been in once place so it is something of a compendium of my work. The forward to the book was written by Jon Krakauer, the author of Into Thin Air.
What inspired you to write this book?
I was inspired to collect all in one place the best work I’ve done over the past four decades. Not getting any younger!
Excerpt from Secret Plans: Vol. III:
Tami Knight began drawing cartoons when she was four years old. In addition to being a gifted artist, she was a brilliant young gymnast. As an eighteen-year-old student at the University of British Columbia studying to become a veterinarian, Knight won the Western Canadian University Gymnastic Championships.
Spoiler alert: Knight never became a veterinarian, and shortly after her Championships victory an automobile accident brought her gymnastics career to a screeching halt.
In the aftermath, friends taught Knight to rock climb at Squamish—the vast, breathtaking granite escarpment sixty minutes north of her home. She was a natural, and she instantly became infatuated with her new pastime. Before long, Knight was one of the top female climbers in Canada.
What exciting project are you working on next?
A book of climbing stories! Young climbers often ask me what it was like to be mountaineering back in the ‘70’s & ‘80’s. They wonder how we got out there without help from the internet! I’m now writing those stories down.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I don’t consider myself a writer; I’m a cartoonist who does a little writing. I’m not quite sure why I feel that distinction. Perhaps it’s because dramatic prose is taken more seriously than comedic and, I’m not a terribly serious person so I identify as a cartoonist.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I don’t write full-time because it doesn’t pay my bills. I keep a sketch book for ideas and I jot them down when they pop into my mind. From there, I’ll work up a rough cartoon, ink it in by hand and then turn it over to my husband who colours the cartoons in photoshop. I don’t draw every day but I’m constantly thinking of ideas.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
My day job is coaching gymnastics. It’s very funny when I have parents who are familiar with my climbing cartoons and now here I am teaching their kid handstands, cartwheels and not to fall on their head.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was six, I drew a picture of myself sitting at a table writing on a piece of paper. The caption I wrote with it said “My name is Tami. When I grow up, I want to be an artist. I want to be an artist because I like it.”
Links:
Website | Instagram | Amazon | Amazon CA | Barnes and Noble
Thank you for hosting and featuring Tami Knight on your site.