Who am I

‘There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.’

- Maya Angelou

I am a writer, director and psychotherapist and I’ve held a longstanding connection with storytelling and the human condition.

This drove my early decision to undergo a degree in Performance at University of Western Sydney in 1994. Upon graduating I knew acting was a string to the bow and wrote and directed my first short film about sexual harassment in the NSW Police Force, which re-aired recently on ARTE, France.

I worked on Star Wars the Phantom Menace as a co-ordinator in 2000 – a time when the detention policies of the Australian government began to take hold. I felt drawn to document asylum seekers, detention and the repercussions on those who reached our shores hoping for a safe haven. I was co-development writer and producer on Well Founded Fear (feature documentary for SBS TV Australia); and wrote and directed and Hassan and the Djinn (ABC Radio National’s then Radio Eye Programme). I then co-wrote and directed Pieces of Me, ( ABC TV) about three sisters with a family history of breast cancer. Most recently I completed a series of audio documentaries about an innovative education programme for under privileged young people in Lismore; and spent a year as a co-presenter on local radio and for the Pregnancy Birth and Beyond podcast.

After being confronted with trauma many times over my film career, I decided to retrain as a psychotherapist in 2007 and have worked in private and group therapy practice ever since (to see how I work click here). The focus on my therapy work is life transitions, trauma, reproductive therapy and anxiety and depression.

How do the two very different types of work combine?

Maya Angelou said it well. Untold story will create life challenges in someone seeking therapy – their own – and is the thread that I pick up as a writer and director – of a character or world. Story helps me straddle both my creative life and my work as a therapist in private practice in Byron Bay Australia which I have made my home.

In 2019 Kimberley was a recipient of Inside the Writer’s Room- Screenworks and in 2020, was awarded a residency at Byron Bay Writer’s festival. She is currently developing a novel, and a feature drama project.