She is the author of POISON GIRLS, a thriller about mysterious deaths of girls in Chicago. She is also the author of UNVEILED: THE HIDDEN LIVES OF NUNS, which chronicles her four years living off and on with nuns. She is a former editor and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers. She earned her MFA from Northwestern University and recently was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine. She is an assistant professor at Syracuse University. Cheryl’s reportage of girls using drugs drug is the inspiration for POISON GIRLS, her fiction debut.