Kim Culbertson

Kim Culbertson is an author and educator whose work spans young adult fiction and professional resources for teachers. She is the award‑winning author of five YA novels, including Songs for a Teenage Nomad, Instructions for a Broken Heart (winner of the Northern California Book Award for YA Fiction), Catch a Falling Star, The Possibility of Now (named a Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year), and The Wonder of Us. She has also written the e‑book novella The Liberation of Max McTrue and her first novel for adults, Other People’s Kids, which has been described as her debut adult novel and recognized as a 2025 CALIBA Golden Poppy finalist for fiction.

Culbertson holds an M.S. in Education and an MFA in Fiction and has been teaching high school English and creative writing since 1997. She serves as a fiction mentor in the Dominican University of California’s MFA in Creative Writing program and sits on the Writers Council for the National Writing Project. Drawing on her dual career as teacher and novelist, she co‑authored 100-Word Stories: A Short Form for Expansive Writing, a Heinemann professional text that blends mentor texts, lessons, and prompts to help secondary students develop narrative