HOLLY PAYNE, a novelist, screenwriter and writing instructor for 15 years, has been published in nine countries. She was named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers author for her debut novel, The Virgin's Knot (Dutton/Plume). She is also the author of The Sound of Blue (Dutton/Plume) and Kingdom of Simplicity, published in 2009 by Third Eye (iii), an imprint she created for Skywriter Books in 2008, winner of a Benjamin Franklin Award for Best First Book (fiction) from a new press. She is currently at work on a new novel of historical fiction and the motion picture screenplay adaptation of Kingdom of Simplicity, recently optioned for an undisclosed sum. Holly has served on the faculty of the Academy of Art University teaching screenwriting and story development, San Francisco State University, the MFA Graduate Writing Program at California College of the Arts and most recently has joined the faculty of Stanford University where she is teaching "Writing the Great Debut Novel." She received her MFA from University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing Program and lives with her family in the San Francisco Bay Area.