#192 Kimberly Phinney: Of Wings & Dirt

Kimberly is a professional helper and artist completing her doctorate in community care and counseling. She is a professor, writer, editor, and counselor. During her critical illness in 2021-2022, she began dreaming about The Way Back to Ourselves and founded it in August of 2022. She is an award-winning poet, and her writing has been published in Ekstasis, Fathom, Truly Co, Radix, Calla Press, Humana Obscura, The Dewdrop, and many others. Her debut poetry collection, Of Wings & Dirt, which is inspired by her health journey, infertility, and miraculous motherhood, will come out in April 2024 with Wipf & Stock. She is also at work on her next poetry collection, a devotional, a nonfiction book on suffering and healing, and a nonfiction work about parenting and leading this new generation toward wholeness, which is the research and passion project that inspired this community. It, too, is titled The Way Back to Ourselves.

You can find Kimberly on Instagram @thewayback2ourselves and on Substack at thewayback2ourselves.substack.com. She writes about faith, suffering, mental health, community, the writer’s life, and more—all with the call to give authentic hope and encouragement to those who are trying to find their way back, too.