Author Kim Berkhof Bolt

Author – Speaker – Mom of 3 (+1 dog)

Author: Kim

  • What I’m Writing

    (September 2025)

    Author Visits

    The world of author visits is still pretty new to me. I haven’t even been doing them for a full year yet, so it feels like a muscle I’m still learning to stretch.

    Maybe that’s because I’m not “technically” an author yet—not in the published, books-on-the-shelf sense of the word. But when a friend in the literary publishing world first suggested school visits as a way to build my author platform, it just made sense. Unlike adult authors, who can lean on social media or book tours, middle grade and younger readers don’t buy their own books or follow writers online. They read what’s put in their hands by parents, teachers, and especially librarians.

    That’s where author visits come in. My friend told me: librarians should become my new best friends. They are the ones who hold the keys to the literary kingdom. They select which books go on the shelves, and even which books are prominently displayed on the tops of the bookshelves.

    The ABCs of ShelfSparking Library Shelves - Ideas & Inspiration from Demco

    At first, I thought of visits as a future marketing strategy. But with more than 25 years in education behind me, I figured I’d at least feel at home in a classroom.

    What I didn’t expect was just how much I’d love it.

    Let me paint it to you this way: doing an author visit is a bit like being a grandparent. You get to walk in, bring the fun, hopefully win the kids over…and walk out. No report cards, no conferences, not even state standards. I teach what I want how I want. Some days I even get to let the students play with playdoh (one of my favorite revision lessons).

    So that’s what is keeping me busy these days. I’m creating one-and-done lesson plans, hoping to inspire students and give them one more writing tool that they maybe didn’t previously own in their toolbox. And I give teachers a break, albeit a tiny one.

    What started as a professional “should” has turned into one of the biggest joys in my schedule. My computer is crammed with Google slides for a handful of upcoming school visits, and my playdoh is packed and ready.

    Let’s go.

    (If I haven’t been to your classroom yet–why not? Let’s set a date! Go to my website and message me)

  • What I’m Reading

    September 2025

    1. Middlesex

    Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

    Length: 544 pages

    Publication: June 2002

    Genre: fiction

    Audience: adult

    SUMMARY

    The astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl.

    In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls’ school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them–along with Callie’s failure to develop–leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

    The explanation for this shocking state of affairs takes us out of suburbia- back before the Detroit race riots of 1967, before the rise of the Motor City and Prohibition, to 1922, when the Turks sacked Smyrna and Callie’s grandparents fled for their lives. Back to a tiny village in Asia Minor where two lovers, and one rare genetic mutation, set in motion the metamorphosis that will turn Callie into a being both mythical and perfectly a hermaphrodite.

    Goodreads Review
    MY REVIEW

    I decided to read this book because my husband nagged me to read it recommended it to me. My error was choosing to read a 500+ page book in the end of August, when all of life gets busy and I have little to no reading time. I found myself reading this book in five and ten minute increments.

    This novel is a stew in your LeCrueset dutch oven. It requires many ingredients that are carefully, painstakingly prepared, and then it is set on a low heat for hours, if not days. This story moves slowly, taking almost 400 pages to get to the primary story of the narrator. Eugenides, through the voice of the narrator, is unapologetic. Less than halfway through the novel the narrator speaks to you, the reader, directly. “Shall I get right to it? No, slowly, leisurely, that’s the way” (232).

    But do not think the backstory is boring or unimportant. At times I felt the story had a little Forrest Gump feel to it, with the characters living out important aspects of history. Add in that much of the story is based in Detroit, and we Michiganders feel some fondness toward this Mitten State story.

    At the heart of the story is a hermaphrodite, so the reader must hold comfort with gender fluidity and confusion. But it’s also about so much more, as it weaves a beautiful tale of three generations of one family, about immigration and living the American dream. It’s about relationships, both love and friendship. Ultimately it’s a book about understanding one’s own personal identity.

    If you have the time to commit to this, I promise you a thought-provoking read.

    2. Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America

    Author: various

    Length: 336 pages

    Publication: July 2022

    Genre: fiction (short stories

    Audience: young adult (some swearing and LGBTQIA+ topics)

    SUMMARY

    Think you know what rural America is like? Discover a plurality of perspectives in this enlightening anthology of stories that turns preconceptions on their head.

    Gracie sees a chance of fitting in at her South Carolina private school, until a “white trash”-themed Halloween party has her steering clear of the rich kids. Samuel’s Tejano family has both stood up to oppression and been a source of it, but now he’s ready to own his true sexual identity. A Puerto Rican teen in Utah discovers that being a rodeo queen means embracing her heritage, not shedding it. . . .

    For most of America’s history, rural people and culture have been casually mocked, stereotyped, and, in general, deeply misunderstood. Now an array of short stories, poetry, graphic short stories, and personal essays, along with anecdotes from the authors’ real lives, dives deep into the complexity and diversity of rural America and the people who call it home. Fifteen extraordinary authors – diverse in ethnic background, sexual orientation, geographic location, and socioeconomic status – explore the challenges, beauty, and nuances of growing up in rural America. From a mountain town in New Mexico to the gorges of New York to the arctic tundra of Alaska, you’ll find yourself visiting parts of this country you might not know existed – and meet characters whose lives might be surprisingly similar to your own.

    Goodreads Review
    MY REVIEW

    I stumbled upon this book as I was researching a potential literary agent. After working my way through some longer, slower reads in August, I was ready for something I could quickly pick up and digest. In addition, the topic very much interested me. For years, I used a different short story series entitled “Voices from the Rust Belt” by Anne Trubek in my community college EN101 class. I loved the gritty stories with tough characters in communities like Flint, Buffalo, Cleveland.

    To my (pleasant) surprise, all of the stories told were about teenagers trying to find their identity in relation to the small town in which they live. Some are trying to space themselves from their zip code; others struggle with being viewed as outsiders. All want to be true to themselves and find balance in their lives.

    This is the kind of book I would love to teach in a high school (or my community college) classroom. I find the stories to be authentic to teenagers’ lives, and I would love to hold discussions and assign projects and hear their perspective on these stories.

    If you are someone who loves short stories, or someone who appreciates the value in a collection of short stories (the ability to read one at a time instead of cover to cover), I recommend this book to you.

    3. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

    Author: Caitlin Doughty

    Length: 288 pages

    Publication: September 2015

    Genre: nonfiction (memoir)

    Audience: adult (morbid)

    SUMMARY

    Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

    Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

    Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

    Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin’s engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

    Goodreads review
    MY REVIEW

    f you have come to know me in the past few months, you will know that I have an interest in death and dying. Caitlin Doughty’s book “From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find a Good Death” was a cornerstone source of information for my MFA Master’s thesis about why we must write about death and dying in fiction. In that book, Doughty explores different death rituals practiced around the world and explores how we deal with death impacts how we live life. It bordered on uncomfortable at times, but for me she always ended the chapter with a beautiful understanding.

    I’ll confess that Smoke Gets in Your Eyes was a bit creepy and overly morbid, even for me. She approaches death and morbidity with a bluntness, a matter-of-fact approach, and she doesn’t shy away from details or soften explanations in this book. There are moments in this book when you are standing right next to her at the door of the crematorium, ready to open it and slide a body in. Doughty is real and raw and descriptive in a way that will make most readers squeamish. Which is too bad, because she has beautiful, important thoughts about death and dying that would make any reader think. Her chapter about embalming made me look at it from a completely different angle and I’m perhaps less horrified about the concept of cremation than I was before I read this.

    If you are someone who can stomach her all-too-real descriptions of the funeral industry, or if you have a “morbid curiosity” as I do, than I recommend this enlightening book.

    4. The Thursday Murder Club

    Author: Richard Osman

    Length: 384 pages

    Publication: August 2021

    Genre: fiction

    Audience: adult

    SUMMARY

    In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.

    But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.

    Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it’s too late?

    Goodreads review
    MY REVIEW

    This book came to me through a recommendation, although for the life of me I cannot remember exactly who or where (that’s what I get at my age for writing things down).

    After finishing a nonfiction memoir about working at a crematorium, I was ready for something a little more lighthearted and fun. This definitely fit the bill. It reminded me of How to Age “(Dis)Gracefully which I read a few weeks ago; both use a group of older people who refuse to age and as a result are generally up to shenanigans.

    As far as murder mysteries go, this one wasn’t my favorite. I didn’t find it to be a page turner as the mystery of multiple murders unraveled, and when the plot was finally revealed, I didn’t feel the same sense of satisfaction that I had with Two Nights in Lisbon.

    But as far as a fiction novel, I did find that I appreciated the characters, their quirks and idiosyncrasies, and the friendship formed amongst them as they used their combined wit and wisdom to solve murders.

    5. The Hotel Avocado

    Author: Bob Mortimer

    Length: 416 pages

    Publication: May 2025

    Genre: fiction

    Audience: adult

    SUMMARY

    Gary Thorn is struggling with a big decision. Should he stay in London, wallowing in the safety of his legal job in Peckham and eating pies with his next door neighbour, Grace and her dog Lassoo, or should he move to Brighton, where his girlfriend Emily is about to open The Hotel Avocado? Either way, he’d be letting someone down.

    But sinister forces are gathering in a cloud of launderette scented-vape smoke, and the arrival of the mysterious Mr Sequence puts Gary in an even worse [situation]; soon he might be dead.

    All Gary wants is a happy life. But he also wants to be alive to enjoy it…

    Goodreads review
    MY REVIEW

    After reading The Clementine Complex earlier this year, I eagerly awaited the arrival of its sequel for the continued saga of Gary and Emily. Alas, I could not find it in any local library district, and so I was forced to purchase it.

    It was well worth the money. Mortimer is British, which makes the writing and dialogue even more lovely. Some of the characters are a bit crass, so the reader needs to be willing to have a few cuss words and general fowl language thrown their way. But the plot of this sequel is simply enjoyable, possibly even more so than the first. In this story we are already friends with the main characters; we could sit down on the couch with them and enjoy a “cuppa” tea and perhaps a slice of Battenberg cake.

    Gary and Emily find themselves individually neck deep in troubles and issues, and living apart has brought other people and relationship temptations in their lives. The talking squirrel, perhaps one of my favorite aspects of the original novel, returns in this story and even has an additional friend to provide conversation and insight for Gary.

    If you read The Clementine Complex and enjoyed it, I highly recommend the sequel. If you have not read the original, I suggest you place it on hold at your local library right now. It is worth the read.

  • What YOU’RE Writing (September 2025)

    Writing Prompt:

    Autumn

    My feelings toward autumn are complex. Okay, maybe they’re not complex, but at least I am aware that my feelings toward this season are perhaps a bit more dreary than many others. I am such a summer lover that I cannot truly appreciate the other seasons for what they have to offer. While others are enjoying their warm, fuzzy sweaters, cooler weather and stunning foliage colors, I spend my fall calendar days dreading winter, making plans for a three month hibernation and searching online for nonstop flights to warmer locations.

    I was searching the internet for general writing themes for autumn, and I stumbled across the most lovely website which encapsulated the magic of autumn and offered the most perfect writing prompts imaginable. I knew after visiting this website that anything I would try to create for my readers would fall short (or veer heavily toward idea plagiarism), so forgive me for punting (that was for all you fall football fans out there) and sending you directly to Gillian Florence’s website for your September writing invitations:

    Gillian Florence

    Story Starter

    This month, I just couldn’t choose between two different story starters, so you get both!

    1. “In my town, the leaves on trees change color every fall based on the changing mood of the people. This year, the leaves all turn black.”
    2. “As she was walking alone in the woods, her eyes caught something. It was an unusual leaf, unlike any she had ever seen before. But when she picked it up to put it in her pocket and take it home, she couldn’t believe what she underneath.”

  • What I’m Thinking

    (September 2025)

    The Weight of Grief

    the weight of grief sculpture by celeste roberge

    Recently, a high school student passed me in the hallway and called out, “That’s the death lady!” I knew what they meant. I’ve spent more time than most people talking and teaching about grief, dying, and the complicated way we humans try to keep living through it. Some of that comes from being raised as a mortician’s kid. Some of it just comes from being alive in the world right now. Death is everywhere. You don’t have to look hard.

    Recently, two people I knew died—both younger than expected, both leaving behind families who are completely shattered. I keep thinking about how we’re supposed to move forward after something like that. How do you even begin? Is it possible to find meaning again? Or joy?

    When I was working on my master’s capstone, I researched the importance of writing about grief in fiction. In my research I found this quote from Megan Devine exposing one of the underlying issues of grief: “We don’t talk about the fragility of life: how everything can be normal one moment, and completely changed the next.” There are an estimated one million words in the English language, but none of them seem to be enough to understand and express grief.

    Grief takes over more than just our emotions. Sigmund Freud of all people was studying this back in the early 1900s, and even then, he recognized how far-reaching grief can be. It touches everything—our physical health, our relationships, our spirituality. Modern researchers like Joanne Cacciatore have backed this up with science: grief impacts the immune system, our nervous system, our heart. So when people say they feel like grief has taken over their entire body, they’re not being dramatic. They’re being accurate.

    And if it’s hard enough for adults to carry that kind of weight, just imagine what it feels like for kids or teens. It’s messy and awkward and full of questions adults often don’t know how to answer—so most of the time, we just don’t bring it up. But we need to. Because here’s the reality: the National Alliance for Children’s Grief reports that 1 in 12 children in the U.S. will lose a parent or sibling by the time they turn 18. That’s six million kids. By the time they hit 25? That number more than doubles. Death—and grief—is not something reserved for later in life. It shows up early and often.

    But in Western culture, we’re trained to avoid it. We don’t know what to say, so we say nothing. Someone else’s loss makes us uncomfortable because it brings about mortality salience, the acute awareness of the fragile nature of mortality, both to us and our loved ones. And so, intentionally or not, we leave grieving people to carry their pain alone.

    Melancholy, a sculpture created by Albert Gyorgy, portrays the void that grief leaves us with. : r/interestingasfuck
    Meaningful Melancholy Created by Albert Gyorgy

    So what do we do with all this? When someone we love dies, the loss isn’t just individual—it ripples through families, schools, churches, neighborhoods. But even though grief is communal in its impact, the actual experience of grieving is deeply personal.

    That’s why it matters so much that we talk about it. Megan Devine says, “When grief is made visible, a doorway into acceptability and openness comes, inviting others to consider and discuss their grief.” And she’s right. Something shifts when we stop pretending we’re okay and start telling the truth. We start to realize we’re not the only ones walking around with broken hearts.

    George Bonanno put it this way: “If we understand the different ways people react to loss, we understand something about what it means to be human, something about the way we experience life and death, love and meaning, sadness and joy.”

    And isn’t that what we’re all trying to do? Be a little more human with one another. Hold space for both joy and sadness. And remind each other that even in the thickest fog of grief, we’re not actually alone.

  • What I’m (Writing) Teaching

    (September 2025)

    So, the end of August rolled in, and I sat down to map out the usual rhythms of my September newsletter. Week one? That one always writes itself—it’s what I’ve been reading lately. Week four? That’s reserved for a wild-card writing prompt or a quick Google search for something fun. Week three is my favorite—I get to share whatever thoughts are bouncing around in my head (and let’s be honest, I always have a few). But week two? The “what I’m writing” week? This month, it stopped me in my tracks.

    Because the truth is—I haven’t been writing. Not really. Not unless you count emails, grocery lists, or the ever-growing sticky note in my planner labeled “things I should be writing but am not.”

    August is tough. It feels like it’s a month where everything changes, and sometimes, quite suddenly. Children who were home full time and gone to school for a good chunk of the day. The weather, which was so hot we swam in it most days, finds us shivering and looking for a warmer layer (which I know excites some of you. I cannot relate. I am already fearing winter). Today, I looked out my window at my backyard to see some of my dogwood’s leaves blushing red, a color I’m sure it was not wearing yesterday.

    Change is exhausting. It requires an adaptation of our entire selves: physical, mental, emotional. The regularly scheduled programming of my life has suddenly been disrupted. And, as a result, I have not written. Not one single word. The novel I’ve been working on? It’s been stuck at 25,000 words for months. Occasionally, I reread it. Sometimes I add a sentence. Mostly, I stare.

    And then the familiar feelings show up. The “I should be writing” guilt. The “why can’t I just get myself to do this?” spiral. Shame, that old familiar friend, creeps in and pulls up a chair.

    How does a writer confess that she’s not writing?

    Just like that, I guess. And once it’s out in the open, it’s easier to deal with. It’s accepted. It’s reality.

    What I have been doing, though—is teaching.

    And I forgot how much I love it. Sure, there’s grading and rosters and attendance and rubrics, but if I had my way, I’d just lock the door and learn for the sake of learning. We’d talk. We’d read. We’d write. There’d be snacks. It would be great.

    Right now, we’re diving into rhetoric, which I was not taught in high school. Or college. It wasn’t until grad school, when a professor casually dropped the word in conversation, that I scribbled it down in my notebook like, what is that and why does everyone else seem to already know it?

    In its simplest form, rhetoric is about persuasion. And sure, we all recognize it in political speeches or glossy magazine ads—but what about Instagram reels? YouTube shorts? That oddly compelling TikTok voiceover? Are we paying attention to the way persuasion shows up in the small stuff? The everyday?

    The first major assignment my students had to complete was entitled “Rhetoric in Reality.” They had to find areas where they hadn’t necessarily been aware of rhetoric before. Some of their responses surprised even me. “Just Do It” came from prison inmate Gary Gilmore’s last words on death row (yes, I looked it up and you should too). KATSEYE is a group selling Gap denim (yup, go ahead and look them up too). Selena Gomez is selling Rare Beauty Cosmetics. People who have nothing to do with the products are pushing them at us consumers. It makes me wonder: have I purchased something just because I attach it to another person who recommended it to me? Did I ever research it myself?

    It made me stop and ask: How many things have I purchased, followed, or believed in just because someone I liked told me to? How many things have I not questioned?

    Because rhetoric is everywhere. Not just in marketing, but in our conversations. In how we introduce ourselves. In how we frame our stories. Everyone’s got an angle, whether they know it or not.

    And here’s the part that gets tricky: once you start seeing it, you can’t unsee it. As I told a few of my students in their feedback, “Rhetoric is so tricky because once you begin to see it, it shows up everywhere. Even in your everyday conversations with friends. The goal is to recognize it, without letting it overwhelm you.”

    So that’s where I am. Writing less, teaching more. Watching the world shift from summer into fall. Watching my students shift from passive consumers to critical thinkers. Remembering that even if I’m not writing chapters right now, I’m helping others write their way toward understanding—and that counts too.

    We keep going. We change what we can, accept what we can’t. We teach, we learn, and we remind ourselves: rhetoric is everywhere. And maybe, if we pay attention, we can get just a little better at naming it.