Kathryn Reiss visits The Bug for a wonderful after-school event.  Kathryn will teach aspiring young authors what it takes to plot a mystery novel in a talks she calls "Getting that Prickle at the Back of the Neck: Writing Suspense Fiction for Kids and Teens."

Katheryn is the author of several teen and young adult fiction novels, including several books in the "American Girl Mysteries" series.  Her books include: The Tangled Web, Riddle of the Prarie Bride,  The Strange Case of Baby H, Blackthorn Winter: A Murder Mystery, PaperQuake and many others.

Kathryn Reiss was born in Massachusetts, grew up in Ohio, and received B.A. degrees in English and German from Duke University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. After college, she lived in Bonn, Germany as a Fulbright Scholar, and during this time wrote the first draft of her first novel.

Ms. Reiss has been a Writer in Residence for the Princeton Arts Council, a recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant for Writers, and has been a featured speaker with (among others) Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, The Northern California Library Association, The International Reading Association, Fresno County Office of Education, California Reading Association, The American Library Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English. She lives in Northern California with her husband and five children, and teaches Creative Writing at Mills College.