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Unfixed memoir
Unfixed: A Memoir of Family, Mystery, and the Currents that Carry You Home is a lyrical exploration of identity, inheritance, and the deep wisdom of the body. When a midlife DNA test reveals that the man who raised her isn’t her biological father, Kimberly Warner is thrust into two parallel mysteries—one unspooling her beloved father’s untimely death, the other tracing the disappearance of a stranger whose blood lives inside her. As she dives into the cracks beneath her family’s foundation, another fault-line opens: her body begins to betray her. Chronic illness, trauma, and unexplained dizziness dismantle her sense of control, forcing her to live in the very place she’s always feared—uncertainty.
Told through prose, poetry, and imagined correspondence, Unfixed carries readers across time and terrain—from the New Age spiritualism of Kimberly’s 1980s childhood to the tidal shifts of midlife—where the body speaks in symptoms and the soul insists on wholeness.
This is not a story of resolution, but of rhythm. Of learning to loosen the grip on linear answers. Of trading the map for the water. For anyone navigating the ache of not-knowing—for those who have searched for home in diagnosis, DNA, or someone else’s approval—Unfixed offers a quiet revolution: that healing may not mean closure, but communion. That wholeness was never about perfection, but presence. And that the current we fear the most might just be the one that carries us home.
In defense of...
Welcome to my deeper dive into everything Unfixed! In this new series titled “In Defense of…” I delve into a quality, experience or object often rejected, misunderstood or discounted in our culture. Ten years ago I never thought I’d be making a case for living in an unfixed body and exalting its virtues. So it got me thinking, What else have we been conditioned to reject? What unassuming beauty or opportunity awaits us when biases are examined and we embrace a life holistic? I invite you to join my horizontal playground where duality commingles without hierarchy or preference, recovering the parts of ourselves, our lives and the earth longing to be part of the conversation.
Unfixed Interviews
While on Substack, I’ve been exposed to a wealth of brilliant writers that explore the messy complexity of the human experience through fiction, non-fiction, essay, and memoir. Reading their work has become an engrossing, educational, and often goosebump-inducing new pastime—from the profoundly attentive Death and Birds essays to a LGBTQ+ serialized novel that always leaves me teary, to weekly laugh-out-loud letters that celebrate and ruminate on mid-life—there is a wealth of wisdom to mine over here. Through this offering, I explore unfixed’s meaning and implication in different walks of life—illness, of course, but also relationships, family, aging, socio-economic challenges, trauma and climate change.
Praise for Unfixed...
I won't be able to sleep tonight. Just cry. This is way more than a page turner. It's a bloody masterpiece. The writing is exquisite. It takes you on a journey you didn’t know you needed - Kim Vanbruggen, former journalist and CEO.
Without a doubt, it is the bravest piece of writing that I have ever read, full of soul-bearing passages. So much of this story resonated with me and I feel enriched by seeing so many things through Kimberly’s eyes and heart. - Greg Temple, CEO
Kimberly’s work is smart, brave and looks hard at difficulties without ever oversimplifying, whining or wallowing in 'poor me.' She’s generous to a fault in lifting up the stories of others rather than trying the grease them up so they'll squeeze into some feel-good self help hell-scape. She lets you look difficult things in the eye and learn to breathe through the paralysis with her. - David. E. Perry, writer, photographer