Bailey Cates
I grew up in the West and earned degrees in philosophy and English from Colorado State University before moving to the Pacific Northwest for twenty years (where the Home Crafting Mysteries are set). I’ve worked at a variety of jobs, including driver’s license examiner, bookseller, and newspaper ad manager.
I traveled the world as a localization program manager for Microsoft, but am now back in Colorado where I currently write the Magical Bakery Mysteries and the Enchanted Garden Mysteries. Shotgun Moon is my only standalone, western mystery. I live with my guy and two felines: Cheesecat the Orange and Minerva the asthmatic wonder kitty.
Like many of my cozy characters, I believe magic is all around us if we only look for it. Having apprenticed with a master herbalist for a year, I’m prone to concocting teas and tinctures for family and friends from the stash of herbs stored in the corner cabinet in my office. I own a working spinning wheel and am on a first name basis with several alpacas and two sheep with questionable dispositions.
For two years, I managed my own soap making company, including product design, manufacturing and marketing. Aromatherapy played a large part in that business, and I have a collection of essential oils next to my herb stash. Unlike the main character in the Enchanted Garden Mysteries, I don’t distill my own oils…yet.
When I’m not writing, I love to cook, peruse cookbooks, garden, read, bike and hike the gorgeous terrain outside my door, and have been known to play the occasional round of really bad golf.
Bailey also writes as:
