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N.J. McNeill, author of Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, is a child of the South, having been born to an old Charleston (South Carolina) family. Her young life was full of sunlit beaches, marshlands, and moss-draped oaks, and plenty of room for a child’s creative imagination to take flight. From a young age she had a keen sense of “pretend” and often played word games with a favorite cousin, finding it a joyous challenge to memorize mind-teasers such as, “Who knocked there?” said she. Then said I, “Who is there?” Then said she, “Here am I.” She attributes the use of fanciful word play in her novel to this early introduction to the fun to be found in language.

Though Ms. McNeill majored in Medical Technology at San Jose State University and later worked as a laboratory research technician, it was not until she returned to college some years later and completed courses in Children’s Literature, Children’s Theater, and Music for Children that she discovered her true passion. “I fell in love with Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and knew right away that was the kind of writing I wished to emulate.

Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers is Ms. McNeill’s first novel. When asked for whom she writes, she deems it best described by the nineteenth century writer of fantasies and fairy tales, George MacDonald, who is said to have declared, "I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five."

When she isn’t writing, Ms. McNeill enjoys painting in watercolor and oil, reading, and spending time with her pets. She now lives in Washington State with her husband, Virgil, their dog, Teddy, and their two cats, Serena and Tabitha.

N.J. McNeill, author of Kurt Nickle-Dickle of Whiskers, is a child of the South, having been born to an old Charleston (South Carolina) family. Her young life was full of sunlit beaches, marshlands, and moss-draped oaks, and plenty of room for a child’s creative imagination to take flight. From a young age she had a keen sense of “pretend” and often played word games with a favorite cousin,... More