ABOUT

SERENA KIM is a writer and editor. She has covered culture, style, and music for publications such as Glamour, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. She’s also contributed to several books, including The Official Michael Jackson Opus, Split: Stories from a Generation Raised on Divorce, and Classic Material: The Hip-Hop Album Guide.

Kim was born in San Francisco and grew up in L.A.’s Koreatown. She attended Fairfax High School, where she served as student body president. After graduating, she traveled to South Africa to take part in the making of a documentary film called Uncommon Ground. When she returned she attended UC Santa Cruz to study Islamic History. She graduated in three years with honors in her major.

In 1995, she moved to New York to pursue a career in the music industry. She worked at Jive, Priority, EMI, Duck Down, and Stimulated Records before she realized that she had a knack for the written word. For five years, she freelanced for various music magazines as she DJ’ed in various hotspots around New York City.

Then in 2001, she was hired at Vibe magazine as features editor where she edited several award-winning features telling the stories of deported Cambodian American gangsters, D.C. area murders in the go-go scene, an international ring of Ecstasy dealers, and rappers’ battered wives. Vibe won the 2002 National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

Kim is an editorial producer at iTunes and lives in Northern California.