I’d like to welcome Ann Littlewood today. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading about Ann’s fascinating background as much I did. Ann was a zookeeper at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon, for 12 years, working with a wide variety of mammals and birds. After a stint in corporate America, she is delighted to be back in the zoo world, at least mentally, writing the Iris Oakley mystery series. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with a sign painter husband and a small but very hairy dog.
Ann, what a fun idea to write a mystery series set in the zoo world. I loved the first book, Night Kill, and can’t wait to read your latest. Your zookeeper experience has obviously served you well. Tell us what you were doing 25 years ago.
ANN: Twenty-five years ago, I was figuring out how to assemble an office wardrobe from scratch, how to walk in high heels, and what an invoice was. I’d quit my zoo keeper job after twelve years and embarked on a career as a technical writer. I would claim the title of Biggest Job Shift Ever, except that a New Zealand relative evolved from itinerant sheep-shearer living in a horse-drawn wagon to senior policy analyst for the government.
But I’m runner-up.
For twelve years, I’d gone to work in rubber boots and brown coveralls and come home physically exhausted. Now I went to work in a skirt and those painful heels and came home, uh, still exhausted. Only now it was from stress instead of scrubbing. A bachelor’s degree and a friend got me this technical writing gig, but I was to revise the manual for the company’s accounting software, and I hadn’t a clue. Fortunately, just as at the zoo, co-workers stepped up and mentored the newbie.
This job and my old job had almost no overlap in upside and downside. One was indoors, the other often outdoors. One paid better, the other had tiger cubs and monkeys. One, you got carpal tunnel syndrome from typing all day long, the other—well, carpal tunnel from cutting fruit and fish for hours.
Technical writing became a great career. But I missed the zoo world, missed the animals and the issues and the people. That’s why I write zoo mysteries – to go back, at least in my head.
To read more about Ann’s work, visit her web site and blog.
Check out her latest book, Did Not Survive, on Amazon. In Did Not Survive, zoo keeper Iris Oakley tries and fails to save her boss from an elephant attack. But is Damrey, the elephant, really a rogue and a killer? Iris uncovers a surprising number of motives to kill Wallace, but Damrey doesn’t seem to have one. Also check out Night Kill on Amazon.
Ann, what a fascinating life you’ve led! I love the premise for the series.
Stacy, you’ve uncovered yet another gem for me to add to my to-read list!
I am looking forward to reading Did Not Survive as I really enjoyed Ann’s first book. Ann, how did you get along that first career path of working as a zookeeper? Have you always been an animal lover?
Stacy, I got that job at the zoo the hard way! I volunteered full time for three months at the zoo’s research center. Then I told the director that I would have to leave if he couldn’t start paying me. It worked! I got a half-time keeper job and volunteered the other half time, until I had a baby. The zoo had only one woman zoo keeper at that time. Another woman was hired when I was, so I can say I was the second or third female zoo keeper to work at Oregon Zoo. The profession was almost all male back then.
Good for you! What were some of your responsibilities as a zookeeper? Did you work with certain kinds of animals?
Since I was “a girl” the logical area was the Nursery. I worked mostly there, with excursions into Felines and Primates when the Nursery was slow. Nursery was great–we got everything! Lion cubs, tigers, wild-born cougars (there’s a sad story there), a baby hippo, mandrill monkeys, eclectus parrots. We did some wildlife rehabilitation, so we raised seals and fawns and ducklings. We set up an owl rehabilitation program and took in about 100 orphaned and/or injured owls a year. Zoos don’t seem to breed animals as much as was done then. We made every effort to have the zoo-born babies raised by their mothers, but I think zoos are even more successful with that now. So you don’t see a lot of zoos with nurseries any more.
That sounds fascinating! All of that hands-on experience woven into your fiction really makes your books come to life. Thanks so much for stopping by and good luck with the series!