About the Author

Behind the Geek

Kimberly Van Ginkel

Hi and thanks for visiting my website. I have a ton of opinions, particularly on books and writing, but I created this primarily as a way to share interesting facts from my research.

I have always been prone to going down rabbit-holes in looking up minor details for my stories. It’s likely one of the reasons that I’m such a slow writer, but it’s a part of the process I love, so I don’t intend to mend my ways.

I am proud to say that I’m fifth-generation Iowan. Although I now live outside the state, that is forever where my heart is and all of my books and stories have a relationship to the rural area where I grew up.

I’ve had quite the meandering career path, including TV programmer, webmaster for a daily newspaper, soda jerk, bartender, freelance designer, IT manager, and CFO. I love databases and coding languages and have developed a high tolerance for financial accounting. I divvy up my free time between reading, gaming, researching, logic puzzles, crocheting, baking cookies, and staring into the abyss.

But if you really want to get to know me, here are some of my most embarrassing stories:

Responding as a nation

I’ve never written before about the shooting at my child’s school, but I need to say this …

That Pioneer Spirit

The number of skills you had to master to be a pioneer in the American West staggers me.

The Inexperienced Tourist

The summer I turned 16, I hopped a plane to NYC. I’d not only never traveled alone before, I’d never even been in an airport …

A girl named Jane

Kindergarten wouldn’t have been so scary if I’d gotten the answer right to this one simple question …

Grieving My Mom, Plus a Boat Race

I lost my mother very suddenly this summer to cancer. I’ve been reeling from that all year and I thought I’d run the gamut of emotions already …

Two Sermons

In all of my years of attending church, there are two sermons that always stayed with me, and both were given by my father. Dad wasn’t your usual minister. Though he was well-versed in the Bible, he rarely quoted scripture and never used it to win an argument. He never tried to convert anybody. In…

The Two-by-Four Argument

I’m guessing my nephew is the only child who ever intentionally gave himself a speech impediment to win an argument.

Grandpa’s Navigation

When I was little, I thought my grandpa had installed an advanced navigational system in his car. This was crazy, as it was the 70’s. Not only did we not have computers, we didn’t even have LED screens. Heck, even the radio was a twist-dial that only got AM! Nevertheless, when GPS was developed a…

Walk of Fame

I took a deep breath, thinking “I hope no one noticed.” Yeah, right.My entire office witnessed …

Trying to Stay Asleep

I’ve never shared this with anyone, but when I was very young I had some strange, intense, and oddly complicated dreams. I still remember most of them, but one from when I was 4 stands out as by far the most trippy. It started with me “waking up” in a different universe. Everyone around me…

A Foggy Day

I’ve always loved foggy afternoons – the way everything in the distance seems to not matter anymore, the feeling of seclusion in open spaces. Everything looks like one of those Gothic British novels that everybody knows but no one has read. Once, in my college days, I was hanging out with friends on such an…

Why I Blog

I’ve always thought of myself as a writer. Unfortunately, that means people expect you to write. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy the process of writing, but it’s hard to stay motivated enough to keep at the same novel for months and years at a time. Every published novelist I know gives the same advice:…

The Christmas Millionaire

Twenty-six years ago today, a crazy thing happened. My dad won the lottery. Yep, no kidding. The real deal. All six numbers. Jackpot. I can still picture the scene: I was standing behind him, peeking over his shoulder as he compared the official numbers to his list. He got to the matching numbers before I…

In my day … we didn’t use seatbelts

Growing up in the 70s, my generation never had to use seatbelts, so we love freaking out our kids (and harassing our moms) about it. I have one buddy who tells about a four-hour drive his family took with a car so full that he and his little brother had to squish into the passenger…

Homecoming

Whenever I visit my hometown, I like to stop by the school, just to see the grounds. Which school? The school.  There was only one in my little town, a complex of buildings that housed all of grades kindergarten through 12th. My kids have a hard time conceptualizing that I only had 60-some kids in…

The Electric Donut

Long after all the other 80s phrases (your “gag me”s, your “tubular”s) have faded from my vernacular, there is one innately 80s saying that I still try to inject into conversation: “I’ve got my quarter up.” Guys within 5 years above or below my age will give me a sly grin of recognition; from everyone…

Nicer in Iowa

Big city people won’t ever believe you when you say that small-town folk are nicer, but it’s true. It isn’t that they aren’t worldly enough to be savvy, it’s that they spend a bit more time looking at people and getting to know them than most of the world does. When I lived in Southeast…

Dot the i’s with circles

My sister had a book on handwriting analysis that I stumbled across in 4th grade. Being a gullible kid, I believed every word — that my aggressively-crossed t’s indicated that I was a braggart, while the backward slant of my l’s said I was introverted and shy. I’m not denying that I was all those…

Dot-Matrix Fortunetelling

When I was in junior high, my school unveiled this state-of-the-art program to help us determine what career paths we were suited for. This being the mid-80s, what they gave us was an MS-DOS program that asked 50 questions, each of which we had to answer on a scale of 1-5. Bo-ring! We all dreaded…


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