There are worse things than sitting outside at a children’s museum on a beautiful day with little fans pointed at your face while your spouse plays with your kid and you catch up on all the things you bookmarked to read.
Planet Word Museum in Washington, DC
Hi there! I'm Kimberly Hirsh. My pronouns are she/ her/hers. I'm somebody's mom. I work as a school librarian. I have a PhD in information and library science. I love to read, play tabletop and video games, and make things. I used to perform in theater and improv comedy and I may one day again. I have been extremely online since 1993 and still enjoy tinkering on the web. I manage multiple chronic illnesses. I'm married to my kid's dad. We have a cat.
Want to get in touch? You can reach me by email.
Recent posts
🔖📚 Read
Kristen Arnett Gets Her Best Ideas at the Bar - Interview Magazine interviewmagazine.com
💬🔖📚 Kate Zambreno on her new book "To Write as if Already Dead" - Los Angeles Times
The postpartum experience isn’t just expensive; it can also be one of psychic trauma and creative crisis. Someone who was a person becomes a mother. “You’re not a person. You don’t have a name,” says Zambreno. This feeling of erasure is a current that runs through her work, reaching peak intensity in “To Write as if Already Dead.” “I need to restore myself after being made into a ghost,” Zambreno says. “I always feel like writing the most when I’m being made invisible.”
Kate Zambreno on her new book "To Write as if Already Dead" - Los Angeles Times latimes.com
🔖🖥️ Elizabeth and Gav promised in this week’s The Rec Center that 1992: Silverwolf would be the most engrossing post I’d read all week and it did not disappoint.
Career Advice for PhDs Websites and Professionals: You should use ImaginePhD! It will help you identify a good post/alt/non-ac career for your interests and skills!
ImaginePhD: Hi Kimberly. You know what you’d be really good at? Being university faculty.
Me: sigh
🔖📚 Read Together As We Burn: On a Complicated Maternal Bond and Intergenerational Love. A heartbreaking excerpt from Ashley C. Ford’s memoir, Somebody’s Daughter.
🔖📚 Read Stories and Hormones Shape Our Lives by Elanor Broker. Beautiful essay weaving together personal experiences of trans matrescence and the books Detransition, Baby and The Argonauts.
🔖📝 Read Finding Time to Write About Motherhood… While Parenting During a Pandemic . The usual fragmented life of a mother is intensified by the pandemic.
Quick Review: The City We Became 📚
I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
I love the way N. K. Jemisin’s The City We Became captures the spirit of the five boroughs of New York here in a way that is legible to non-New Yorkers. This book recasts Lovecraftian horror as a fight for the city’s soul. It features street artists, grad students, an MC-turned-lawyer-turned-councilwoman, a PhD director of an art non-profit, and a sheltered girl who’s never left Staten Island. If you’re looking for representation for Black, Latino, and queer characters, Jemisin’s got you. This book is a fast, fun read that imagines some of the daily horror in our world as being caused by eldritch forces from beyond our universe. Borrowed this one from @durhamcountylibrary. Highly recommend.
What’s a fantasy or sci-fi book you’ve read that helped you think through recent events?
Finished reading: The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin 📚