Katy Steinmetz is an award-winning writer and former bureau chief for TIME Magazine.

Now based in Arizona, Katy grew up in the Ozarks, where her first job required wearing old-timey dress. She studied English at Columbia University and the University of Edinburgh before earning a Master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri, where old-timey dress was optional.

Thanks to a scholarship from the White House Correspondents’ Association, Katy moved to Washington, D.C., and began reporting for TIME. She would go on to work for the magazine for more than a decade in various posts. While based in D.C., she focused on politics, chasing senators around the Capitol and presidential candidates around Iowa. For several years, she also wrote a weekly column on language.

In 2013, as a member of the National Press Club, Katy had the idea to put on a spelling bee between journalists and members of Congress. The event was such a success that it has become an annual rite of humiliation for Beltway insiders.

Later that year, Katy moved to San Francisco to cover national news in the West, with a focus on tech, culture and LGBTQ issues. Her cover story about transgender Americans’ ascendent struggle for civil rights, “The Transgender Tipping Point,” won a GLAAD Media Award for fair and inclusive reporting. She became TIME’s bureau chief in 2015.

Today Katy works as a freelance journalist and wields her love of words in branding, helping to name new products and companies. She also enjoys teaching, public speaking and writing books for children.

Katy lives in the woods with her husband and two children. In her free time, she loves posing for photos with her arms crossed.