This tree was in the stunning Carnarvon National Park in Queensland. It was too wide for proper hugging, but I gave it my best shot.

A few things about me...

Reading always comes first for me. I write because I read, and not the other way around.
As a kid, I read under the covers with a torch after lights out. Because who can put down a book in the middle of the most amazing adventure?
As an adult, nobody tells me to turn out the light. Except sometimes my husband, but I just tell him shhhh, and get back to reading.
I love it when books make me laugh—and cry—and worry—and celebrate—and hold my breath—and breathe easy. Books are life.
I was a happy kid in a happy family, with no real problems to speak of. Books helped me learn about the world outside of my own safe space. That is still why I read – to make my world bigger, and to help me understand it.
I’m a qualified Early Childhood Teacher, and it’s not hard to guess what my favourite thing about teaching was. I read to large groups of kids on the mat, and smaller groups on the couch. We took books outside and read on blankets spread out under the trees. We stomped around singing Bear Hunt songs and we made up stories of our own while we raced down the slide.
I’m not teaching right now, because it’s time to write.

You may not see them in this photo, but I promise you there are many, many saltwater crocs in this river! Kakadu National Park, NT, Australia. I’m the one up front.

Some things in my life that I will never do again:

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travel down a crocodile infested river in a small tinnie, with no knowledge of how to safely drive a boat.
lather peanut butter thickly on bread, and top it with hundreds and thousands of 100s & 1000s. It’s just too much!

Some things in my life that I would like to do again (but probably won't):

nestle up high in a favourite tree with a book.
nestle up high in a favourite tree with a recorder, and play tunes for the neighbours.
ride a billycart down a steep hill and smash into piles of autumn leaves at the bottom (I no longer have access to a billycart, and I’m a little more worried I might break).

My favourite words (these things are very important to a writer):

billabong – because it sounds like a song and it makes me smile.
eclectic – because it does NOT sound like a song – each letter feels different and mismatched in my mouth in a rather wonderful way. Say it out loud – and feel how many different shapes your mouth has to make.
awkward – because look at it! The written word on the page is the very definition of itself.

And a more formal biography:

Kim grew up reading books and has never stopped. Now she writes them too – and is in awe of those who illustrate. She thinks out her stories while walking in nature, and these spaces often find a place in her work. The wonder of nature fills her up.

Kim spent many years working as an early childhood teacher, with children whose ideas run big and free. She believes that language and stories and books prepare us for our world and help us through the trickiest of times. The childhood that her parents gave her, and the joy of her own three children, inspire her every day.

While her stories have appeared in the NSW School Magazine over many years, her educational titles have supported new readers in schools. Now, her first junior fiction verse novel, Hannah Backwards, is ready to hit the shelves. Kim is thrilled to have been awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship, to take place in the Blue Mountains, NSW, in 2026. There she will continue work on a new children’s verse novel.

Reading and writing on Wurundjeri Land