Kate is a member of the Writers Guild of America, PEN USA, and holds an MA in Human Development from Pacific Oaks College and an MFA in Writing for Children from Vermont College of Fine Arts. As a Hollywood screenwriter, Kate developed and wrote screenplays about women's issues. Kate worked as a teen advocate in the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women's (LACAAW) Teen Abuse Prevention Project. She also took the LA Commission's Rape Crisis Hot Line training. Kate has co-facilitated support groups for adolescent girls in both California and New Mexico and coordinated LIfe Skills?a science-based, three year, drug and alcohol abuse prevention program?in the middle schools of Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 2008 to 2010 Kate taught six PEN in the Classroom writing workshops to eighth and tenth graders in the public schools of Santa Fe. CHOICES is her first young adult novel.