Bio

Patrick Jennings first book, Faith and the Electric Dogs, became a Booklist Editors' Choice and a Texas Bluebonnet Master List selection. Faith and the Rocket Cat received accolades, as well. Kirkus Reviews calls it “A blissful multilingual escapade.” Jennings continued receiving critical acclaim with Putnam and Pennyroyal. Booklist states, “…the characters, both feathered and human, are strikingly fresh.”

His reputation as a talent of middle grade fiction continued to grow with the publication of The Beastly Arms, The Wolving Time. and Out Standing in My Field.  Of The Wolving Time, Publishers Weekly wrote, “Jennings demonstrates a superb diversity of style and characterization with this gripping tale of a family that can turn into wolves.”

Jennings often visits schools. He presents to large groups and small, leads workshops at young writers' conferences, and speaks at professional conferences. Patrick focuses on the use of language and story to plumb the mysteries of the universe, and to express the breadth of one's imagination. His goal is to inspire students to take up their “magic wands” (writing instruments), to value their own curiosity and creativity, to see writing and reading as means toward a greater understanding of oneself and others (living and otherwise), and to have a lot of fun doing it.

Patrick Jennings was born in Indiana, and moved to Arizona as a teenager. He attended Arizona State University and San Francisco State University, where he studied education, writing, and art. He has taught English and preschool in the U.S. and in Mexico and was a librarian in the oldest public library in Arizona. He now lives and writes in a small seaport town on the Olympic Peninsula with his family.

Visit Patrick Jennings's Web site.