Clare B. Dunkle

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-21

Clare B. Dunkle, born Clare Buckalew on June 11, 1964, in Fort Worth, Texas, is an American children's fantasy author and librarian. She earned a BA in Russian with a minor in Latin from Trinity University and a Master of Library Science from Indiana University Bloomington, later working at Trinity University's library. She lived in Germany's Rheinland-Pfalz region for seven years, an experience that shaped several of her books. She is best known for The Hollow Kingdom Trilogy (2003-2005), which won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature in 2004, and she went on to write The Sky Inside (2008) and its sequel The Walls Have Eyes (2009), a dystopian pair aimed at younger readers, as well as the gothic novels By These Ten Bones (2005) and The House of Dead Maids (2010). In 2015 she published two memoirs about her daughter's struggle with anorexia, Elena Vanishing, co-authored with her daughter Elena Dunkle, and the companion volume Hope and Other Luxuries, marking a shift into non-fiction alongside her established fantasy career.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Hollow Kingdom (2003) · The Hollow Kingdom Core Canon
• Close Kin (2004) · The Hollow Kingdom Core Canon
• In the Coils of the Snake (2005) · The Hollow Kingdom Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 3 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 1 (1 won)

← All authors