Katherine V. Forrest is an American writer. Forrest is best known for her nine novels about lesbian police detective Kate Delafield. The character was the very first lesbian police detective in the American lesbian mystery genre and is described as "Miss Marple with k.d. lang, Sherlock Holmes with Candace Gingrich, and you've got Kate Delafield: ex-Marine, homicide detective for the LAPD, queer-as-the-day-is-long heroine." The second novel in the series, Murder at the Nightwood Bar, was optioned for film by director Tim Hunter. The screenplay had been written and roles cast with Mary-Louise Parker as Delafield and Tom Arnold as her police partner, but the project was ultimately shelved. Her romance Curious Wine is considered a classic of American lesbian literature. In discussion of the "light" element of the lesbian romance Forrest said, "I think it's political as hell... Here were two women who had a lot of choices in life, a lot of options, and out of all of those options they chose the hardest one, which was to love each other." The novel is credited as one that "broke through many misconceptions about lesbians and lesbian relationships." 

April 20th, 1939 in (Age 85)