Cheryl L. Reed is the author of the nonfiction book Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns and the novel Poison Girls, which won the Chicago Writers' Association Book of the Year. A former staff editor and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and other publications, Reed's stories have won multiple awards, including Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting. She has twice been awarded a U.S. Fulbright Scholar fellowship, first in Ukraine and then in Central Asia. She currently lives near the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Visit her at cherylreed.com