Patricia Killian Deaton is a native of the foothills of North Carolina whose poetry, fiction, and nonfiction has been published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. She does memory training by composing poetry while taking walks, then trying to remember it at home—although she admits to occasional cheating with a pad and pen when a composition seems too good to risk losing. Patricia, a new and very young but very thrilled great-grandmother, lives with a huge orange cat named Sweet Boy near a lake.