Freelance writer SERENA KIM covers culture, style, and music for publications such as Glamour, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. She is also contributing editor at Latina.

Kim was born in San Francisco, Calif. in 1973. She grew up in L.A.’s Koreatown and attended Fairfax High School, where she served as student body president. In 1991, 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 her true calling was actually in journalism. 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 now lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and pug.