R. Cathey Daniels grew up in the mountains of Western North Carolina and graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, with a master’s degree in education. She taught high school mathematics in East Tennessee prior to becoming an award-winning newspaper reporter for The Oak Ridger, covering education as well as science coming out of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is a 2016 graduate of the Stanford University Novel Writing Program, won first prize in the 2018 Retreat West First Chapter Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2020 University of New Orleans Press Novel Contest. Her novel, Live Caught, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press (June, 2022). When she isn’t writing, she can be found at Crossfit, in her garden, hiking, or shooting hoops with her grandkids.