Hi! I’m Kim, and I’ve been teaching writing, creativity, literature, and theory in universities and elsewhere for over 20 years. I’m also a freelance editor for small presses like Semiotext(e), Nightboat, Les Figues, and Make Now, and have edited books for authors like Constance Debré, Ryoko Sekiguchi, Andrea Abi-Karam, Josef Kaplan, and Joey Yearous-Algozin. I received my PhD in English from UCLA, where I served as the archivist for Wanda Coleman’s papers and worked as a research assistant/copyeditor for academic book manuscripts (NYU Press, Oxford UP). I also hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland, College Park. I love working with writers, artists, and other creative people on both their processes and projects!
After studying astrology as a grad school “side hobby” for a decade, I began to serve as a consulting astrologer for friends and interested strangers. Most recently, I completed formal astrological training with Renee Sills and became a member of the Embodied Astrology Practitioners’ Cohort. In addition to studying with Renee, I have also been deeply impacted by the work of astrologers like Alice Sparkly Kat, Ramon Parish, Demetra George, Sherri Taylor, Jessica Lanyadoo, Chani Nicholas, Erin Sullivan, and Donna Cunningham.
Some of my primary theoretical and literary influences are Gloria Anzaldúa, Michel Foucault, Sylvia Wynter, Gilles Deleuze + Felix Guattari, and Leslie Marmon Silko. I also take primary inspiration from my aunt, Carolyn Conger, my surrogate caregiver as well as my first and most important teacher, an energy and grief-worker who taught me about each person’s profound connection to Earth and spirit across lifetimes. I see the work of opening to one’s own creative energy as a spiritual practice of channeling or tapping into this birthright.
My current research interests include:
technologies for healing the spiritual and material impacts of violence and trauma
collective liberation
neurodivergence and neurodiversity as forms of creative evolution
astrology in relationship to myth, historical cycles, resistance movements, psychoanalysis, tarot, and critical theory
queering and decolonizing the astrological tradition
coalition-building across difference and conflict resolution within localized sites of anti-capitalist struggle
movement, energy, sound-based, and other practices that help to bridge the mind-body split
the significance of narrative and myth within personal and collective experience
auto-theory/fiction/biography and other hybrid genre/experimental art forms
working with malefics and hard aspects
family synastry and the natal chart as a portal for ancestral connection, healing, and communication
vocational astrology