LOLgalleycats

Let's close out our annual winter pet photo parade with a few more holiday-themed pictures...

"We were surprised when Lula developed a sudden interest in Judaism, though she has yet to move beyond the 'knocking the lit candles out of the menorah' phase," emails Lena Phoenix, "but she has always shown an interest in religious matters." Phoenix explained that while she was writing her first novel, The Heart of a Cult, Lula was particularly fond of sitting on the pages of freshly printed drafts.

Pistachio may look familiar to readers with young children—he's the model for Ian Schoenherr's Cat and Mouse. Although usually, Schoenherr reports, "he's not this animated."

And Kat Meyer of The Bookish Dilettante sends us a collage with Tosca the cat and pugs Petunia and Diesel (the latter of whom is "still learning the difference between 'smile' and 'look at the ground'"). "They are bookish pets that love being read to but don't like wearing silly Santa hats," she tells us.

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Kristien Weber, a senior editor at New American Library, and her fiancé took their pug Samson out to have his picture taken with Santa Claus—although she confesses that just a few minutes later, the dog was using Santa's beard as a chew toy... Meanwhile, Angela James, the executive editor at Samhain Publishing, sent us a picture of her younger beagle/border collie mix, Reese. "He just turned one and this is his first Christmas with us, but he's had no problem embracing all the holiday decorations and festivities," she says. "His brother, Heath, is a little more camera shy and aggressive, and would just as soon eat the pillow as snuggle up to it."

Cats, on the other hand, take a much more jaded view of this Santa business—if Poly, who lives with Black Dog and Leventhal production designer Marie Mundaca, is anything to go by. Her name is short for Polyhymnia, but as it happens she's also polydactyl...just like Ernest Hemingway's cats.

Don't even think about skipping that deadline, Laura Anne Gilman: Pandora and Boomerang are staked out to make sure you hit your word count on your latest novel every morning. (We're guessing they also make sure she keeps the inventory at the Book View Café up to date...)

Paula Yoo sent a bunch of pictures of Oreo for us to choose from, and the one with the Santa cap was awfully tempting, but in the end, we chose one of the photos with Oreo at the computer. Yoo's first YA novel, Good Enough, came out earlier this year, and we're looking forward next spring to seeing her next project, a biography of film star Anna May Wong for young readers.

"Oreo was a stray cat who would hang outside my house while I wrote," Yoo told us. "He was so cute and friendly so I started playing with him. Eventually, I realized he was a stray cat and began leaving out tuna fish for him. He would stop by every day at 10 a.m. After about a month of our morning get-togethers, he failed to show up. I was so worried that I dropped everything and walked a mile around my house, looking for him! When I came back, he was waiting for me. And that's the moment I realized I had to adopt him."

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"Even though I'm John Grogan's agent, I never understood the hoopla about dogs," confesses Laurie Abkemeier of DeFiore and Company. "So it came as a big surprise to a lot of people that my kids and I brought home a puppy last month. His name is Russell, and he's a 3-month-old Pembroke Welsh Corgi. He's also the world's most awesome dog. I still don't quite get what the big deal is about dogs, but I sure get how great this one is."

"So this is Vegas," emails Joe McGinnis, Jr., "named for the locale in daddy's novel, The Delivery Man. The basket belongs to his sibling—our first son, Julien. Found Vegas in it—actually lying down at first, having squeezed in, curled up, visibly uncomfortable. He's on the verge of giving up here, surrendering this, and so much more, to his new little brother (or as Cesar Millan would have it, 'pack leader')."

"While he's as sharp as the next dog," McGinnis adds, "and can perform your basic 'roll-over', 'shake and even 'speak' commands—no matter how hard we try, he just can't get into Updike. Maybe it's the sex scenes."

This is the actual author photo Doreen Orion used for her travel memoir, Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own, which came out earlier this year. "I had planned to use a 'normal,' professional head shot in the book," Orion told us, "but my wonderful editor, Stacy Creamer, saw the picture on my website and said, 'I think we should use that!'" Orion adds that the picture—taken in Sitka, Alaska—has added emotional signficance for her because Miles, the standard poodle, died near the end of 2007.

(Bonus points to the first commenter who can tell us the other aspect of Sitka's literary significance.)

First Jenny Rappaport, who recently launched her own agency, sent us a picture of her cat, Zoe, sitting in a manuscript box two years ago, when she was just a kitten. ("It's totally archaic now," Rappaport told us, "since I do everything electronically.") Then her assistant, Jodi Meadows, emailed a photo of two of her ferrets in the holiday spirit. That's Simon up top, while Leanne looks to see if she's missed any presents.

"Kitty Katz likes books about other cats," says Meg Parsont of the Parsont Publicity Group. If you look closely, you can see that she's reaching out to A Wodehouse Bestiary, The Cat Who came for Christmas, and A Cat Abroad. (That last title was easier to spot before we shrunk the picture down to fit on the site; sorry!)

"This is Sadie, my number one fan and number three dog, devouring a copy of my second book, The Winter of Her Discontent," mystery writer Kathryn Miller Haines tells us. "Somehow she selected this book out of house filled with books to enjoy the day I decided to leave her out of her kennel while I was gone. She found the book so engrossing that she didn't bother to look up from her destruction when I came home."

Science fiction/fantasy author S. Andrew Swann sent us a photo of his cat, Zoe, while journalist Kelly DiNardo emailed a picture of her dog, Dudley, that was taken by Stacey Vaeth, the same photographer who did the head shot for DiNardo's Gilded Lili: Lili St. Cyr and the Striptease Mystique.