An archive of Kim’s posts can be found HERE.

I am the only child of a golf course construction supervisor and a writer / photographer, so to say I had an unconventional upbringing is an understatement. I lived in nine different places before the age of three, including Cancun back when it was still just a jungle, and a remote little resort in the Philippines. I spent most of my school years in Maine, galloping my horse along snowmobile trails at speeds it’s better my parents did not know about. I worked as a junior ski instructor one winter at Sugarloaf, skiing backwards down black diamond slopes while small children encountered “the Headwall” or Upper Spillway for the first time. Most didn’t hesitate at the top, though I did have to carry the occasional one down. (Not backwards, of course.)

When I was sixteen, my parents and I moved to Senajoki, Finland. After briefly attending the local school, I completed the last 2.5 years of high school through the mail. Homeschooling then was nothing like it is now, nor did it look particularly good on college applications, but my essay got me into Truman State University, in Kirksville, Missouri. After earning a B.A. in British Literature and composition there, I went on to get my MA in English from Iowa State, where I also taught composition.

After moving to Texas with my husband in 1997, I worked in the insurance industry until I had my first of two children, at which point I left the corporate world and became a full time mother and writer. Since then I have completed three novel-length manuscripts, published articles in historical society journals and an arts-and-crafts periodical, and written several doctor profiles for a regional magazine. I’m nearly finished with a historical novel inspired by the colorful lives of my great-grandfather, landscape painter Carl Ahrens, and his wife, a gifted artist and singer. My next book will take place in the Civil War era.

I am active on Facebook and Twitter. You can also find me here at Writer Unboxed, where I am an assistant editor.

When not writing, I can usually be found reading, tinkering on my website, and chauffeuring my daughters to their dance studio.