Karelia Stetz-Waters is the author of the novel The Admirer and the serial novel The Eastbank Killer; her work has also appeared in Calyx and First Time: An Anthology of Lost Virginity. She holds a master's degree in English from the University of Oregon and a bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature from Smith College. A member of Willamette Writers and the Gold Crown Literary Society, Karelia teaches technical writing and English composition at Linn-Benton Community College. She lives in Albany, Oregon, with her wife, Fay, their pug, Lord Byron, and their cat, Cyrus the Disembowler. Having grown up during the violent political debate surrounding Oregon's infamous anti-gay Ballot Measure 9, Karelia's first young adult novel, Forgive Me If I've Told You This Before, is loosely based on her own experiences of growing up gay in Oregon in the early nineties.