Kate Sweeney was the 2007 recipient of the Golden Crown Literary Society award for Debut Author for She Waits, the first in the Kate Ryan Mystery series, which was also nominated for the Lambda Literary Society award for Lesbian Mystery. The second in the series, A Nice Clean Murder, was nominated the Lambda this year for Lesbian Mystery, and is a nominee for GCLS award in the Mystery category. Her novel Away from the Dawn released in August 2007 is also nominated for the GCLS award for Speculative Fiction. She is also a contributing author for the anthology Wild Nights: (Mostly) True Stories of Women Loving Women, published by Bella Books. Born in Chicago, Kate resides in Villa Park, Illinois, where she works as an office manager—no glamour here, folks; it pays the bills. Humor is deeply embedded in Kate’s DNA. She sincerely hopes you will see this when you read her novels, short stories, and other works.