Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kimberly Brock. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Kimberly, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Childhood for me was spent in a very rich world of imagination, whether I was play-acting or dancing or reading. My earliest memories are of listening to stories or songs or pretending to perform on the stage. Stories were how I experienced the world around me and the larger one that I dreamed of far from where I spent my days on a pretty farm in a small community in north Georgia. I was writing plays and poems very early on, winning an award from the Georgia Poetry Society in elementary school. My favorite teachers were always also very good storytellers and so it makes sense that I was drawn to that field for my career. I believed then and now that stories were powerful and life-changing. In college I also studied theater. But a creative career in the arts had never seemed like more than a pipe dream until a friendly exchange with a kind and generous bestselling author changed everything when she suggested I write something for publication. I took a chance and when my first short story was published, a dream was realized.

Kimberly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am an author of Southern and historical fiction, and a former actor and special needs educator. In keeping with my belief that creativity is transformative, I founded Tinderbox Writers Workshops and Retreats, a creative experience for women in the arts. I’m a mother of three, married to my college sweetheart, and a teacher at heart. I’ve served as a guest lecturer for many regional and national groups, including The Women’s Fiction Writer’s annual conference and The Pat Conroy Literary Center. My voice is steeped in the low and slow flavors of the foothills of Appalachia, the region where I grew up and now make my home.

My debut novel, THE RIVER WITCH, was released in April 2012 and was an Amazon bestseller featured by both national and international book clubs and included in multiple reading lists. Praised by RT Reviews and Huffington Post as a “solemn journey of redemption, enlightenment and love,” and evocative of “the stories of Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers,” Kimberly’s debut novel was honored with the prestigious Georgia Author of the Year Award in 2013, by the Georgia Writer’s Association.

My most recent novel, The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, a Southern historical fiction, released April 2022. ArtsATL described it as “gentle in tone…matrilineal feminism at its most dreamy . . . The storytelling is rich, lyrical, and garlanded with Spanish moss, with jewel-like passages that beg to be re-read.” The novel spent three weeks on The Southern Independent Booksellers Bestseller List.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Imposter Syndrome is the first thing that comes to mind. I struggle with this ridiculous doubt on a daily basis. I think resilience is required to face that down as a creative. I’ve come to understand that I will never be smart enough to write the book I’m writing, until it is finished. That self-doubt that plagues me as I try and try again to execute the idea I have in my head is the most challenging part of my creative process. It’s a constant inner conflict that does not resolve until I have come to the end of edits, and even then, I am always plagued by the things I think I could have done better⎯or believe someone else might have done better. Perfectionism is my enemy. But if I can stand back and look at the ways I have grown as a writer and the things I am pleased with about the way the story strikes readers, I’m always overwhelmed with gratitude for the gift of storytelling in my life. It’s always teaching me and growing me and I’m not meant to come to it perfectly, but openly. For me, that’s where I find the joy in writing.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Sowing empathy at every turn. To me, that’s the real purpose of a storyteller’s life and work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kimberlybrockbooks.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimberlydbrock/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberlybrockauthor/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kimberlydbrock
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVG2pbpzc661VtrjML9kpbQ

Image Credits
Claire Brock Photography