Kim Green is a freelance writer and public radio producer. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, CrimeReads, Roads & Kingdoms, the New York Times, Hemispheres, and the Nashville Scene, and on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Nashville Public Radio, Marketplace, the New Yorker Radio Hour, and NPR’s Here and Now. She’s managing editor of Pursuit Magazine, an online publication for professional investigators.
Before writing, Green was a flight instructor in Nashville. She co-translated and edited a memoir by a Soviet combat airwoman from WWII; Red Sky, Black Death was published in 2009.
note: Yes, I do tape synchs! I’ve done phone synchs, in-person recordings, interviews, and remote recordings for many radio outlets, including NPR, Marketplace, The New Yorker Radio Hour, Revisionist History, Radiolab, This American Life, Post Reports (a WashPost podcast), American Routes, Sound Money, and many more.
Contact info: kim [at] storyboardemp [dot] com
Recent:
The Gradual Extinction of Softness – Essay/memoir excerpt co-written with Chantha Nguon. (Hippocampus Magazine) Chosen as a top story of the week by Longreads, The Browser, FERN, HackerNews, and BMoreArt and as a Best Personal Essay of 2021 by Longreads. Pushcart nominee.
Much-Needed Reckonings – An accidental food writer looks for lessons from the canon. (Chapter 16) Chosen as a top food story of the week by Longreads.
Radio
Rachel Held Evans and Her Legacy – Produced a 30-minute podcast in collaboration with reporter Eliza Griswold and editor David Krasnow (WNYC & the New Yorker Radio Hour)
The Last Abortion Clinic in Mississippi – Produced an audio segment from Rachel Monroe’s reporting tape as part of a longer podcast package: If Roe v. Wade Goes, What Next? (WNYC & the New Yorker Radio Hour)
Transitioned (2017) – A series (WPLN)
Working It: Living Between Hope and Hardship – A series (NPR)
Transitioned (2011) – A series (WPLN)
A Lesson in Sprockets Takes Students on a Trip (NPR’s Weekend Edition)
Siblings of Sick Kids Learn a Life Lesson Early (NPR’s Weekend Edition )
From Foodie Desert to Foodie Destination (WPLN)
Paying for Better Eyes in the Skies (Marketplace)
Print features
Grace Under Fire – Embracing LGBT members may have saved Franklin’s GracePointe Church — or destroyed it. (Nashville Scene)
Micro-Houses of the Holy – Can a tiny portable home fight homelessness and the affordable-housing crunch? The Rev. jeff obafemi carr is living in one to see. (Nashville Scene)
American Dreamers – Four stories of immigrant mothers who braved hard work, perilous journeys, even separation to raise their children as U.S. citizens (Nashville Scene)
Profiles
How to Produce an Investigative Podcast – Interview with Chip Brantley, co-producer of NPR’s “White Lies” (Vanderbilt Magazine)
“The Confession Tapes”—Q&A with Filmmaker Kelly Loudenberg – The creator of a true-crime Netflix series talks about her two-year investigation of false confessions. (PursuitMag)
Sherrick + Paul: New Gallery, New Art – A curator and gallery entrepreneur infuses big-world art into a small-city arts scene. (Nashville Arts)
2015 Nashvillians of the Year: The Diplomat and the Warrior – How attorneys Abby Rubenfeld and Bill Harbison helped to change history (Nashville Scene)
Ruta Sepetys’s Long Journey Home – How a Nashville author’s quest to discover her family history resulted in a bestselling debut novel (Nashville City Paper)
Dan Hampton, Veteran of the Month – A retired F-16 pilot has put aside the sword and taken up the pen to tell the stories of people who love flying. (Parade)
Travel & Food
Much-Needed Reckonings – An accidental food writer looks for lessons from the canon. (Chapter 16)
She Despised the Flavor of Short Cuts (Roads & Kingdoms)
Can We Also Get Drunk With This Badass Centenarian Female USSR Combat Aviator Pls? (Roads & Kingdoms)
Hotel Review: The Dream Nashville, Printers Alley (NYTimes)
Bota Wine-Drinking Lessons with a Spanish Mule-Driver (Roads & Kingdoms)
Cedar Key, FL—Lovely & Untamed (originally in AOPA Pilot Magazine)
On Being a Regular (originally in Hemispheres Magazine)
The Warrior Dash (NPR’s Only a Game—a delightful slide show of mud & flames)
Business & How-To
3 Investigative Skills That Might Make You a Better Human (Pursuit Magazine)
3 Things Pilots Know About Crisis Management (Fast Company)
Cultivating a Gardener in 6 Easy Steps (Nashville City Paper)
Attempts at Humor
Merry Christmas! You’ve got Cactus Man – Sometimes a community needs a Christmas tradition all its own (Chapter 16)
Oh, the Places You’ll Pee! – A scatological message to graduates (Nashville Scene)
Halcyon Days – Adventures in home renovation: Shovel fights! Exploding cars! (From HER Nashville)
Personal essays
Doors Open, the World Enters In – On home, hosting, and the Slow Noodles tour. (Nashville Lifestyles: At Home)
A Pilgrim’s Progress – A 5-foot-3 woman’s got to learn to be big sometimes, especially when her 6-foot-tall guy feels small. (Nashville Scene)
Unnatural Selection – Excused from the Jury for Cause (Nashville Scene)
Planting Trees Whose Shade We May Never Enjoy – A writer gardens through an existential crisis (Chapter 16)
Investigator’s Notebook: Super Sad True Surveillance Job – On a domestic surveillance job, a PI discovers a web of connection, delusion, and distraction. (PursuitMag & Nashville Scene)
What We Talk About When We Talk About “Rape Culture” – An open letter to good men (Nashville Scene)
Teachable Moments in Aircraft Emergencies – Flying Lessons: How to Appear Calm While Crashing a Small Plane (Nashville Scene)
Book Reviews & Roundups:
A Long, Strange Trip (Review of My Trip Abroad, by Chang-Rae Lee) – My Year Abroad traces an ordinary young man’s journey to a weird hell and back. (Chapter 16, Nashville Scene)
Live and Let Spy (Review of Sometimes You Have to Lie, by Leslie Brody) – In Sometimes You Have to Lie, Leslie Brody traces the origin story of an author and her fictional heroine (Chapter 16, Memphis Commercial Appeal)
PI Storytelling Through the Ages: Books, Blogs, and Podcasts by Real Private Eyes – If you want to stalk real private investigators and learn their secrets, all you have to do is read, listen, and subscribe. (Lit Hub/CrimeReads)
Radical Joy (Review of Black Bottom Saints, by Alice Randall) – In Alice Randall’s Black Bottom Saints, a dying man eulogizes the “Black Camelot” of mid-20th-century Detroit. (Chapter 16, Nashville Scene)
Conspiracies of Silence (Review of Say Nothing, by Patrick Radden Keefe) – Say Nothing weaves the unsolved case of a disappeared Belfast mother into a history of the Troubles. (Chapter 16)
Here Be Dragons (Review of The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, by Wayétu Moore) – Wayétu Moore flees from Liberia’s civil war and fights to be seen in race-obsessed America (Chapter 16, Nashville Scene)
The Not-So Open Road (Review of Overground Railroad, by Candacy Taylor) – Overground Railroad, Candacy Taylor’s history of the Green Book, Is a blunt-force reality check. (Nashville Scene, Chapter 16, Memphis Commercial Appeal)
Road Through Midnight – Multimedia artist Jessica Ingram’s haunting monograph explores the South’s racist history. (Nashville Scene)
The Year in Mysteries: What I Read in 2019 – A roundup of crime novels and true crime nonfiction I read, loved, and did not love last year (Pursuit Magazine)
Full of Grace (Review of The Virgin of Prince Street, by Sonja Livingston) – Sonja Livingston recounts her search for a missing Virgin Mary statue and her own mislaid faith. (Chapter 16 & The Commercial Appeal)
Fields of Dreams (Review of Three Flames, by Alan Lightman) – Patriarchal mores and the ghosts of genocide haunt a Cambodian farming family. (Chapter 16)
Podcasts
SpyCurious: The Sound of Pursuit Podcast – A private investigator-themed podcast co-produced with Hal Humphreys.
Video Shortdocs
Old School: The Making of Nashville’s First Academic Magnet School
Banh Xeo – Vietnamese Crepes: How and WHY to make them
Chantha Nguon’s Long Journey Home
Books & Collections
Red Sky, Black Death: A Soviet Woman Pilot’s Memoir of the Eastern Front (as editor and co-translator)
“Mother, but Not Mom” (essay included in That Time of the Month: Funny Female Storytelling)
Awards
2016 Association of Alternative Newsmedia: 1st Place, “Vodka Yonic” by Clara Kim, Kim Green, and Abby White, Nashville Scene
2014 Association of Alternative Newsmedia: 1st Place, “Vodka Yonic” by Abby White, Ashley Spurgeon, and Kim Green, Nashville Scene
2014 Tennessee AP broadcasters: Best light feature
2013 Public Radio News Directors: 1st place, Best writing
2012 Tennessee AP broadcasters: Best short light feature
2011 Public Radio News Directors: 1st place, Best use of sound
2009 Tennessee AP broadcasters: Best use of sound, Best sports feature, Best in show (radio)
2008 Tennessee AP broadcasters: Best long light feature
2007 Tennessee AP broadcasters: Best long light feature, Best sports feature, Honorable mention
2007 Public Radio News Directors: 1st place, soft feature
2004 Public Radio News Directors: 1st place, news feature; 2nd place, series
2003 Max Karant Award for Excellence in Aviation Journalism
Random Media Mentions
Hollywood Is Calling (NPR’s On the Media) – Kato Kaelin calls me to pass on a message:
“Kim Green, this is Kato Kaelin calling…I want to tell you one really, really great thing. Hal is in love with you! He wanted me to let you know he is in love with you — [SHOUTING] forever!”
5 Tradition-Breaking Ideas for the Feminist Bride (Vogue.com) – Quoted in a fun listicle about weddings:
“It’s so hard to separate your real happiness from the pressures of others’ opinions and judgments, and I don’t have it all figured out. But with our wedding, at least, we did it the way we wanted to and didn’t let other people’s agendas influence our thinking.”
Tarta de Santiago (Style Blueprint) – In which Hal makes a delicious cake.

Interviewing non-PC racers at the Warrior Dash
Wow. You have accomplished list of things I aspire to. Well done, and congrats on finishing the book!
Thanks! Finishing is only the first step! Much more to come.
Wow! I did not realzie that you were not a beginner in Russian! 🙂 Great accomplishment! 🙂
I always feel like a beginner in Russian. But I keep trying.
Kim,I’d love to talk to you about our company and projects. May I give you a call? Thx Jimmy
Absolutely. I’ll send you an email. And I’ll spell your name correctly this time.
Best,
Kim
I’d love to read the piece about breatcance without “pink sticky sentimentality”. I can really relate to that.
*breastcancer
Kim, thanks for your honest feedback and heartfelt concerns expressed in today’s Nashville Scene article about the 12south development. I am so grateful that you and Jimmy Granbery had the opportunity to connect. Please be assured that the H.G. Hill Realty Co. will do all that it can to make the 12South neighbors and the Nashville community at large proud of this new development.
I was struck by your comment that you’ve never “experienced the Hill family in your neighborhood.” It made me laugh out loud because quite honestly there are so many Hill family members running around Nashville that I don’t know how you missed us! We are always plugging cousin Jimmy Granbery with the exact same ideas, thoughts, concerns, wants and needs for Hill properties. We are in 12South. Perhaps that was me, right next to you at Maffioso’s, or sitting in church at the Hope Center? I’m taking associates to lunch at Burger Up. Jimmy Granbery is getting questions and concerns by both family members and board members alike with each quarterly meeting. This WILL be a responsible, first-class development. 12South is special and will remain special, I am certain. What’s genuinely reassuring to me is the energy and strength coming from the neighborhood. Combine that with the investment and opportunities and 12South will be altogether outstanding. Don’t you think?
Thanks again for being a great neighbor, and steward for the 12South community.
Ashley C. Levi
4th generation Hill family member, former employee, Board member H.G. Hill Co.
Hi, Ashley!
Thanks for your gracious note! I replied to you directly via email. But for the benefit of anyone else reading, please let me elucidate: the “When I walk down my street, I do not experience your family” comment was not meant to be snarky, only to make the point that I DO appreciate that the Hill family has a long and local history; but what I directly experience in my neighborhood are the local businesses here and the entrepreneurs that created them—Miranda at Burger Up, Will at Edley’s, Carrie and Matt at Imogene+Willie. They’ve become friends, and their creations (and their pleasant company) enrich my life every day.
Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts. As I told your cousin Jimmy, I promise to be honest and fair and to keep an open mind. I hope to meet you soon in the ‘hood!
KG
Ok….you’re just a badass and you’re headed straight to the top of my “Coolest” list 😉
Thank you! I’m on a list!!!
There is nothing more pleasurable for me than to read GOOD WRITING. OMG. You are my hero. And, yes. You are on The List!!!
“You wash your face with shampoo.” LOL. Really amusing and well perceived list! I’m off to start my Camino in Astorga in one week!
Hi Kim!
I met you and your husband the other day at Pinewood Social and would love to talk to you sometime about writing. I am a fan.
Sincerely, your new writer pal Lily 🙂
Pingback: How to Succeed in Gardening Without Really Trying | Franklin Flower Basket
Pingback: Plant Profiles: Summer-Flowering Vinca | Franklin Flower Basket
Pingback: Spring and a Porch Swing | Franklin Flower Basket
Pingback: The Color of Leaves: Think Beyond Green | Franklin Flower Basket
Pingback: Cool Ideas: Pallet Fence Garden | Franklin Flower Basket
Pingback: Pursuit Magazine Sound of Pursuit. Episode 2. Right and Wrong.
Pingback: Pursuit Magazine Coming Monday: Sound of Pursuit—Land of the Lost
Pingback: Pursuit Magazine Sound of Pursuit. Episode 5. Spencer for Hire.
Pingback: Pursuit Magazine Sound of Pursuit Podcast: A Matter of Fact-Checking.
Pingback: Pursuit Magazine Sound of Pursuit Podcast: Small-Town Sting Operation
Hi! Two of my friends and I are doing a National History Performance over the Night Witches. We were wondering if we could interview you via email, and ask you a few questions about them to help further our research. We would appreciate this greatly.
I’d be glad to! kim@storyboardemp.com
Hello, I am an 8th grader working on a history project about the Night Witches of WWII. I was wondering if you would be able to answer a few questions for me over an email interview? I am very curious about this topic and I understand that you may be able to help me. Thanks!
And I see that you have done an interview before, so I hope you will not mind doing it again.
Hi Annie! I would love to. Please feel free to email me at kim [at] storyboardemp [dot] com. We can also schedule a phone call if you’d rather talk by phone. I look forward to hearing from you!