Kim Heikkila, Ph.D.

I am, at heart, a listener. The most transformative moments of my life have been those when I set myself aside to truly listen to someone else’s story. These stories came in many forms, from many voices: A college course on the U.S. criminal justice system. A film series about the post-World War II African American civil rights movement. A novel about a platoon of young men fighting a war they didn’t understand. An anthology of essays and poems by women of color. These stories changed my view of the world and my place in it.

As a graduate student, I made story-listening the focus of my research as I interviewed women Vietnam veterans from across the country about some of the most significant, painful moments of their lives. As an adjunct history professor for more than ten years, I saw the past come alive for students as I taught them to gather the stories of their elders. As an author of two books based on oral history, I have seen how story-sharing empowers those who tell and changes those who listen. As owner of Spotlight Oral History, I want to share the transformative power of story with my clients and those they serve.

I have the experience and expertise to create and deliver formal oral history projects, unique story-sharing projects, and workshops and consultations customized to suit clients’ needs. I have a Ph.D. in American Studies, with a minor in Feminist Studies, from the University of Minnesota. I was a fellow in the Oral History Summer Institute at Columbia University before it began its master’s degree program. My oral history work earned the support of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the National Women’s Studies Association, the P.E.O. Sisterhood, and the (then) Center for Advanced Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota. Since launching Spotlight Oral History in 2016, I have done oral history projects for organizations ranging from the Minnesota Historical Society to the Whittier Alliance neighborhood association and have interviewed veterans of the U.S.-Vietnam War and the antiwar movement it spawned; immigrant entrepreneurs on Minneapolis’ Eat Street; Minnesota appellate court judges; voting rights activists; boxers with Parkinson’s disease; and former residents of the Salvation Army’s Booth Memorial Hospital. This work has been supported, in part, by grants from the Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage (Legacy) fund by way of the Minnesota Independent Scholars Forum and the Minnesota Humanities Center.

I am also an award-winning teacher and author and sought-after public speaker. My most recent oral history based-book, Booth Girls: Pregnancy, Adoption, and the Secrets We Kept (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2021), was released in March 2021 and has been named a finalist for a 2022 Minnesota Book Award. My first book, also based on oral history interviews, focused on military nurses who served in the U.S.-Vietnam War. Sisterhood of War: Minnesota Women in Vietnam (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011), was a finalist for a 2012 Minnesota Book Award. In 2006, I won the Oral History Association’s Post-Secondary Teaching Award. I have delivered more than 50 public talks about my oral history-based research and writing.

If you want to discuss your ideas for sharing the stories of your organization, community, or constituents, I’m ready to listen.