Katie White

For the past four years Kate White has been the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, the largest selling women's magazine in the world. But during this time she's had a secret fantasy. No, not the kind of secret fantasy you might find in Cosmo. Kate dreamed of writing a murder mystery.

Kate fell in love with Nancy Drew mysteries at the age of 12, devoured every one of them and as an adult went on to read all the major stars of the genre. She became a true murder mystery junkie. She also began to fantasize about creating her own amateur sleuth. By this time, though, she'd broken into the magazine business and she just didn't seem to have the time or energy to write fiction.

Kate got her start in magazines, by the way, at Glamour, after winning the magazine's Top Ten College Woman contest and appearing on the cover. She went on to hold key jobs at a variety of national magazines and eventually became editor in chief of Child, Working Woman and Redbook. During this time she wrote two acclaimed non-fiction books, Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead and Gutsy Girls Do and Nine Secrets of Women Who Get Everything They Want.

After she had run Redbook for four years, she was asked by her boss at the Hearst Corporation to take over Cosmopolitan, the flagship magazine in the company and one of the most successful magazines in the world. Following in the footsteps of the legendary Helen Gurley Brown, Kate has stayed true to the mission of the magazine but has modernized it and added many new features. Since she has been at Cosmo it has become the number one selling magazine on the newsstand in the U.S.

But throughout these years Kate never lost her yearning to write a mystery. Several years ago she realized that if she didn't get around to doing it, it would never happen so she decided to finally carve out the time for it. She eliminated stomach crunches from her life and began using early Saturday and Sunday mornings to write her mystery. It took about two years to complete her first mystery, If Looks Could Kill.

Though Kate has no plans to quit her incredibly fun day job, she's committed to writing mysteries. The second Bailey Weggins mystery, A Body to Die For, is due out in 2003.

Kate lives in New York City with her husband and two kids, 12 and 14. She says her kids have been incredibly understanding of her love of the macabre and may be two of the only children who have happily gone on the Jack the Ripper Tour in London.