(the ol’ third-person style bio)
Since 2003, Kami Rice has authored articles and essays published in a wide variety of online and print publications. Beyond traditional articles, she has completed an extensive range of other writing, communication and media projects for an array of clients and has sold photos to accompany her stories. Kami has been freelancing full-time since mid-2007, covering stories that have taken her around the world. She has served as a guest speaker in college journalism classrooms and participated in career days at elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. and in London.
Shortly after graduating from Asbury University with official degrees in journalism and applied communication and unofficial degrees in student government and how to pull all-nighters, Kami served as a National Fellow in Leadership with the National Center for Leadership in Washington, DC.
Prior to launching her writing career, Kami worked in Washington, DC, in congressional offices and for a non-profit organization that trains broadcasting and telecommunications professionals from developing countries; in Pennsylvania serving as a campus minister with the CCO as well as training and mentoring students at Messiah College; and from a Tennessee base while traveling with and booking concerts for independent musicians. (“Traveling around the country in a tour bus (masquerading as a Camry) with a rock band (er, singer-songwriter) is every bit as glamorous as it sounds,” Kami says, though her tongue may have been in her cheek when she made that statement.)
Surprisingly, a logical thread always led from each of these fields of endeavor to the next, though that sounds far-fetched on the face of it. Concurrently with launching her writing career, Kami made thousands of excellent espresso beverages during five years of barista-ing at a busy Music Row Starbucks.
When in Nashville (her home base since 2002), Kami enjoys assisting with ESL classes for her Somali Bantu refugee friends, participating in various book and writing groups, reading at Centennial Park, hiking at Radnor Lake, soaking in the fellowship of her local church body, attending concerts performed by musician friends, and trying to find people to play basketball with her. In Nashville and elsewhere, Kami enjoys meeting strangers, visiting old friends, and finding new stories to tell.
Interviewing a high school student in Uganda.
Artistic statement
Integrity requires that my writing have the intentionality inherent in the rest of my life. Thus, at the root of my work is the real pursuit of stories that honor people who have the least opportunity, for myriad reasons, to tell their own stories. Already firmly established as a freelance writer, four years ago I was finally released to explore in earnest my long-standing interest in people and places outside the United States. For two years I traveled extensively as a writer, returning to Nashville between months-long stints abroad. These travels deeply inform both my domestic and international work.
As I listen to the people I meet and to the whispered clues of cities and country-sides themselves, both at home and away, I am always looking for the story that isn’t normally told, the story that defies cliché and stereotype, the story one has to lean in close to hear. I seek to understand that story well and be the bridge that conveys that understanding to an audience lacking the time, opportunity or skill to discover the unexpected stories on their own.
When I tell stories, I love to discover new ways of weaving words together. Something pleasant dances inside me when words work themselves into the right rhythm for the story they’re telling. I am inspired by prose writers who are also poets, who write for the sake of beauty not only for the sake of information.
"Trying on clothes" at a Cambridge market. If I blog about it, does it count as work?
On the job on a New Orleans culinary tour for media folks. Not too shabby a way to spend the work day. 
