Linda Rodriguez is a winner of the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. As a poet, she has won the Thorpe Menn Award for Literary Excellence, the Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, and the Midwest Voices and Visions Award. She enjoys knitting lace shawls, spinning alpaca wool, weaving tapestries, and gardening with herbs and native plants. Linda lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband, a Plott Hound, and a domineering cat.