My name is Chris Widdop, and my Velcro the Ninja Kat series is the story of one cat’s desire to save the world from a brewing evil. And as we join her on this action packed adventure in this magical world, we get to meet a wide assortment of characters and explore their various dynamics. As much as it’s a story about wanting to save the world, it could be argued that it’s also just as much about coming to terms with personal strife, finding peace within oneself, as within the world itself, and learning to connect with one another again.

Velcro the Ninja Kat has recently celebrated the 10 year anniversary since the release of the first book. And yet even so, as far as I’m concerned, we’re still only just getting started. To date, there are presently five novels in the series (The Ninja Kat; The Green Lion; The Masquerade; Polluted War; The Egg Hunters), which have all been collected together in the recently released Complete Edition. The series is also featured in a brief comic book adaptation and a live action short film, with plans to expand the story even further, both within the realms of novels, as well as in other mediums too.

Including the title character, Velcro, who is based on my cat who I had growing up, a majority of the cast of characters are made up of my other pets that my family would get over the years, including our cats and dogs and hamsters and rabbits and such. But even pets of long distance family members would make it into the stories, such as my family up in New York, who practically had a zoo in their house from the wide assortment of animals they had living there. And even more still, I didn’t reserve it to strictly just family, but the pets of many of my friends also found their way into my novels, many of whom I’m certain still aren’t even aware of it yet. And I set out to capture the personalities of all these animals and bring them to life on the page, taking the various antics that the real life animals would find themselves in and expanding on those stories in a grand and fantastic way in these books. Stylistically, the series takes inspiration from a lot of eastern fantasy, so if you’re someone who’s into anime or manga, then I would say that this series would certainly be right up your alley.

It’s a story that I’ve been working on since I was a child, back when we would act it out while playing with neighborhood friends. But once I grew up, the time had come to take those childhood stories and share them with the world, and I feel that anybody who has ever had a pet that they’ve loved from the bottom of their heart will find something to love here. And to anybody who has ever been that kid who has similarly ever run around in their backyard going on grand adventures in the world of their imagination, I also hope that they can find something to latch onto and appreciate with these stories.

I’ve been writing novels for over ten years now, but in addition to novel writing, I’m also a filmmaker. The aforementioned short film, Kip, is based on excerpts from the Ninja Kat novels, and I have also directed and produced four other shorts, ranging from fantasy (The Red Scarf), to drama (Dream Girl), horror (Breathe), and comedy (Sianostra), with much more still yet to come.

I appreciate the opportunity to share this story on the Author’s Lounge, and I hope that you will find this series to be something worth checking out!