Jennifer Sowle

I grew up in southern California, with desert chaparral on one side and ocean on the other, like living between two worlds. The daughter of a scientist and an artist, the imagery of different worlds found its way into my childhood writings and continues today. My young-adult fantasy series The Animal Guild combines the rich "reality" of the California geography with the fantasy of animals living in that geography in secret societies, having adventures that stray into the realm of magic.

I started writing The Animal Guild Series when I was 13 years old, and the plots have borne many revisions over the years (I won't say how many years, but the key word is "many"). The first five books in the series—The Animal Guild, Monsters in the Territory, The Marrhob War, The Nhorn and Outcasts—are available, with The Hikum (Book 6) coming soon. I'm currently working on the seventh novel in the series, which is also sort of like the first novel of a concomitant series. This concurrent novel is about a group of (human) kids involved in adventure and magic, and the plot segues into the Animal Guild world in some weird and intriguing ways. But the characters have their own stories to tell, and I try not to get in their way.

While The Animal Guild is a self-contained book, the trio of Monsters in the Territory, The Marrhob War and The Nhorn are a trilogy within the series, complete with cliff-hanger endings. The plot in these books veers toward the fantastic, but the crux is the bond between the two main characters, Corto (a dog) and Renard (a fox), their loyalty to their friends, their sacrifices, their teamwork, and their tolerance toward those who are different. Outcasts and The Hikum -- well, see for yourself!