Rita Mae Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of the Mrs. Murphy __ mystery series (which she writes with her tiger cat, Sneaky Pie) and the Sister Jane novels, as well as Rubyfruit Jungle , In Her Day , The Six of One Trilogy , and The Sand Castle , among others, and of the memoirs Animal Magnetism and Rita Will. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia, with cats, hounds, horses, and big red foxes.