KRISTEN WOLF is an author, creative and wondernaut living in the Rocky Mountains. Her debut novel, THE WAY, was hailed by O, The OPRAH Magazine as "A Title to Pick Up Now!" A graduate of Georgetown University, she was nominated to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and holds an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins University. As a child, Wolf grew up in a heavily forested suburb outside New York City. She credits her family with passing along an avid love and respect for nature-which explains the photos of her posing with an ever-widening array of animals living in their home including stray dogs, cats, guinea pigs, two raccoons, mice, a flock of quail, chickens and a squirrel who lived in her bedroom! Needless to say, hers wasn't the average American upbringing. When she was in middle school, Wolf's family purchased a piece of raw land in upstate New York. From then on, they lived like a regular Swiss Family Robinson every weekend and summer. Rain or shine they cleared land with tractors and chainsaws, built four-rail fences and a barn which they slept in for a period of time. Eventually they began harvesting crops and tending horses, cattle, chickens and pigs. This led to a very unique life for Wolf as she lived like a farmer on the weekends and a student in public school during the week. Growing up, life was a revolving door of diverse events from wrangling cattle for de-worming to waiting in line to see a Broadway show-from bottle feeding a premature foal to writing a thesis on Shakespeare. Maybe it was the diversity of her early life that later led Wolf to pursue a variety of interests including acting and directing in theater, journalism, filmmaking, flying lessons, rock climbing, scuba diving, learning piano, mountain biking, competitive tennis and playing guitar in a rock band (so clich� but true!). Such a life gave Wolf exposure to a wide and eclectic range of people and disciplines, keen powers of observation, a passion for the natural world, unlimited curiosity, a flair for the dramatic and a strong independent streak-very helpful traits, it turns out, for a writer intent on discovering unseen connections and looking beyond the known. Not surprisingly, Wolf's diverse interests and experiences emerge in her fiction-which defies easy classification. The genres of her work range from subversive historical fiction to speculative fiction to fantasy to non-fiction essays. Subject matters range from impassioned composers of the Romantic era to renowned spiritual leaders to ephemeral beings in futuristic realms. Despite the range of genres, what all Wolf's works share in common is: an obsession with exploring beyond the known and accepted; a passion for logical, well-supported speculation; and characters existing outside the norm who possess a desire for belonging. One trait that Wolf admires in other artists is the desire to continually seek more. To be forever roaming into new and unfamiliar territory. Forever risking different styles and even forbidden subjects. Think of musical artists like Prince and Bj�rk, or an author like Jeanette Winterson and how they constantly morphed and evolved themselves and their art form-sometimes radically-in order to pursue and more fully reveal the subject matter at hand. When such a concerted effort spans an entire career, the sheer breadth and variety of creative output always proves provocative and thrilling. Nothing would make Wolf happier than to one day end up with an ultra-diverse body of work that reflects even a small taste of that same thrill. Time will tell. One thing that's for sure, as she strives toward her goal, you'll never know what-or who-she'll endeavor to write about next.
