About Me

Communities | Awards

I'm on the right, posing with one of my awesome ex-roommates at a wedding in August 2009.

Hello! My name is Kim — trade journalist by day, book blogger and freelance writer by night in the Madison, WI area.

I just graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. I grew up in Minnesota, and got my BA from the University of Minnesota, Morris in May 2008.

What is my blog about? Book reviews, thoughts on journalism grad school, and other musings as I see fit, I suppose. I tend to read memoirs, literary journalism, and fiction. I also like comics and young adult fiction, but don’t get to read those as much and feel like an unqualified reviewer for those books.

I encourage you to check out my Reading List and Review Policy to see how my tastes compare with yours and whether I might be a good blogger to review a book.

Over the last year I’ve had a couple of amazing honors come my way thanks to the book blogging community. In September 2009 was shortlisted for Best Nonfiction Review Blog for Book Blogger Appreciation Week. In May 2010 I was a panelist at I the Book Blogger Convention talking about writing and building content. Wow.

Here are a few of my other favorite posts and projects:

• I currently co-host the Blog Improvement Project with the awesome Jackie from Farm Lane Books. If you haven’t joined, feel free to start at any time — we always welcome newcomers!

• I have a semi-regular feature called Narrative Nonfiction 5 in which I features five books on a particular theme — previous themes include living “current” events, women writers, and life back on the farm.

• Sometimes I like to rant about authors and issues I find frustrating. Earlier this year I ranted about Nicholas Sparks.

• Two of my favorite books from 2009 were The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. The latter earned the first “Perfect Score” review I’ve given.

• My favorite poet is Billy Collins, and I highlighted some of his work in April 2009 for National Poetry Month. This post is about his poem “On Turning 10.”

• In addition to blogging about books, I also occasionally post about my work as a journalist. During Spring 2009 I posted a series of articles about a multimedia project I put together for one of my classes. The first post was on the process of reporting for multimedia, and the final post was a link to my project titled “Free Spirit Dancing.” I also recently did a piece about summer reading trends and approaches.

Comments, questions, compliments, and other queries can be made through the contact information below.

Contact Information:

• sophisticated[dot]dorkiness[at]gmail[dot]com
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• Follow me on Twitter: @kimthedork
• My links on delicious
• View my page on Book Blogs