SUE MONK KIDD is the author of two memoirs, "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" and "When the Heart Waits". She received a Poets and Writers Award for the story that inspired novel "The Secret Life of Bees". Her fiction has appeared in several literary journals and two of her stories-including an excerpt from "The Secret Life of Bees"-were selected as notable stories in "Best American Short Stories". She currently lives in South Carolina.