Kirsten Ismene Schilling was born in Eastern Pennsylvania. She moved to California in her early twenties, and has never left.

An artist, parfumeur, and writer for over twenty years, she has a bachelor’s degree in Art History from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, and a master’s certificate from Antioch University Los Angeles in the Art of Publishing.

An archivist and an art historian, Kirsten’s aesthetic has long been informed by the women Modernist artists and writers of the early 20th century.

Kirsten has kept a journal for much of her early life, which is where many of her creative nonfiction stories have originated. A feminist author, she writes in alignment with the belief that the personal is political.

Kirsten’s first collection of creative nonfiction, My 23rd Birthday and Other Stories was published in December of 2019.

Her short stories have been published in the literary collections “Formidable Woman Sanctuary: A Journal of Literature and Art” “Prometheus Dreaming” and “Under the Gum Tree” and in an anthology of women writers called “She is Everywhere, vol. 3.” Her work will also appear in forthcoming publications in 2021 by “Levure Litteraire.”

Kirsten is also the author of an autobiographical cookbook called The Fragrant Kitchen: Culinary Recipes from a Botanical Perfumer which she first published in December 2014, and rereleased in December 2018 via her own publishing imprint, Arabesque Press. Currently available via Arabesque Press is the 6th and final edition of this cookbook, in digital format only.

She is currently working on her second collection of creative nonfiction short stories called “Tendrils and Other Stories” and a memoir of the senses, “Melting the Myrrh” publication date currently unknown.

Visit this link to purchase a copy of “My 23rd Birthday and Other Stories.”