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Born in 1972, Bridget Engman was a straight-A student whose teachers had but one complaint (or at least one that we're going to share with you...): she was unable and unwilling to stop drawing in class.  She attended Catholic School in Elgin, Illinois, through her freshman year of high school, at which time she applied and was accepted to the Illinois Math and Science Academy, where she enrolled in Japanese classes in addition to her math and science curriculum.

Upon graduating high school Bridget first attended the University of New Orleans as an art major; however, growing disillusionment with New Orleans in general, and the UNO arts department specifically, prompted her to first change majors, and then change schools, finally transferring to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she majored in East Asian Languages and Cultures, with a Japanese Literature concentration.  Working around the birth of daughter Rachel in March of 1994, Bridget earned her BA in Spring of 1995, and through the auspices of a FLAS fellowship, went on to earn her MA in Japanese Literature in Spring of 1997.

Meanwhile, Bridget had grown active in the world of anime fanfiction, and upon graduation drove a Ryder truck across the country to join fellow fanfiction author J. Austin Wilde (whom she had met on the Fanfiction Mailing List) in sunny Tucson.  One year later, they were married, and just over a year after that, in August of 1999, baby Madeline joined the family. 

In May of 2000, hoping to earn some extra money while staying home with the kids, Bridget put her first pieces of anime catgirl artwork up for auction on eBay.  Encouraged by her success there, it was not long before her catgirl community had grown to what you see here.  In addition to anime-style artwork, Bridget creates and sells furry and fantasy art, and occasionally paints impressionistic still lifes. 

She also enjoys medieval recreation, embroidery, romance novels, manga, cooking and baking, sewing, and occasionally wielding power tools in a good cause. Between her many hobbies and a child who refuses to sleep through the night, she is often a Cranky Headmistress, and delights in berating the young whippersnappers of the anime world with tales of the old days, when Ranma was only available as a fansub. If that.

Visit Bridget's Livejournal!