about Kim

I was born in Okla­homa, where I spent a lot of my child­hood explor­ing the woods near our house. I enjoyed search­ing for frogs and horned lizards. I often got into trou­ble for com­ing home with mud­dy shoes. One of my favorite things to do was to pick black­ber­ries. But I would usu­al­ly stop at a friend’s house where we hosed them off. I would eat most of mine before I got home! I loved spend­ing time in my room too, where I would pre­tend to teach school to my stuffed ani­mals. It was also a place where I would dream and write.

​​In col­lege, I earned a B.A. in jour­nal­ism and pub­lic rela­tions from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cen­tral Okla­homa. I’ve worked in pub­lic rela­tions and as a free­lance writer.

​I grew up in a mil­i­tary fam­i­ly. Six of my fam­i­ly mem­bers have been sta­tioned or worked at Tin­ker Air Force Base in Mid­west City, Okla­homa. My Wichi­ta great-grand­fa­ther served in the Navy dur­ing World War II. My grand­fa­ther on my mom’s side served in the Air Force also dur­ing World War II. My Wichi­ta dad was draft­ed into the Marine Corps and served dur­ing the Viet­nam War. 

​I mar­ried an Air Force offi­cer who has tak­en me all over the world. I’ve even flown on an AWACS jet and got to sit in the jump seat behind the pilot! We’ve lived in Ger­many and South Korea and vis­it­ed many coun­tries. Our eldest son was born overseas.

​I’m an enrolled mem­ber of Wichi­ta and Affil­i­at­ed Tribes. When I was grow­ing up, I nev­er saw a kid like me in books. The ones I read that fea­tured Native char­ac­ters were stereo­typ­i­cal and talked about us in the past tense. We are still here! I write about con­tem­po­rary Natives, unsung heroes, and untold his­to­ry. I want to see ALL of us reflect­ed in books. I hope you’ll join me in one of my stories.