My 138,000 word novel, Discovery, is the first book of my book series ‘The Humanimals.’ It is an action packed fun-filled thrilling story that begins when twins ‘discover’ they have the power to morph into animals…yet that is only the beginning. Set near Madison, Wisconsin, twins Emily and Tony Dunn are normal eighth grade students when Emily first discovers her newfound power. What follows is a series of adventures and misadventures by the twins exploring Emily’s abilities and limitations, both at home and at school, while trying to keep her powers secret. Tony soon comes upon powers of his own while the twins’ mom, a biologist, is determined to find the reason her twins have their newfound abilities. Some investigating leads her to believe they may stem from an accident that occurred years ago at her workplace while she was pregnant with her twins. She also finds out there may be others with similar powers who may have devious revenge driven plans as to how to use them. The progression of figuring out their powers is filled with action, suspense, teenage fun and a number of thrills. Soon, the story drives towards a complicated and dramatic climax that may blow up a large part of Madison and cost the lives of numerous people and animals. Facing the risk of having their powers found out, can Tony, Emily, their family and best friends save the day? And even if they try, is it worth the risk of being found by authorities to have supernatural powers? The ending is suspenseful and filled with a couple touching surprises.

In the twenty-first century, the body is experienced less as a fixed entity than it is as a protean product and a project of technological, medical and artistic invention. The essays in Bodies in the Making: Transgressions and Transformations address the proliferation of such transformative practices as tattooing, piercing, self-cutting, cosmetic and transsexual surgery, prosthetics, organ transplants and life extension technologies. Establishing links among these varied practices, the contributors illuminate the dramatic and widespread changes that have taken place across generations in attitudes towards the relation of the body to the mind, to agency and to subjectivity. Bodies in the Making also addresses a paradox that has shaped recent body modification debates. Although physical transformations are usually experienced as self-expressive and libratory, they are frequently understood to be socially determined, economically driven and culturally enmeshed. Contributors to the volume engage this contradiction directly, exploring ways in which diverse body practices are capable of subverting power while also at times re-inscribing it.