Kirk was born in Marion General Hospital in Marion, Ohio, and lived in a town called Prospect with his father, mother, and sister until after he was seven years old. His father died from a heart attack when he was 6. His mother remarried and the family relocated to Magnetic Springs and then to Richwood, where he lived until he left for college.

While he never really loved farm life, Kirk has an appreciation for the lessons learned there about the circle of life, work ethic, and what it means to be neighborly. He bailed hay, built grain bins, and raised hogs — while writing stories, making up entire worlds, and quietly pretending to wrestle imaginary opponents on his trampoline.

That fascination with stories — and the trampoline matches — led Kirk first to professional wrestling. For twenty years he worked as a manager and backstage personality in the indie wrestling world, eventually being inducted into the NWF Hall of Fame.

He learned something important in those rings: the best narratives are the ones that feel true even when they're not. The crowd wants to believe and the best storytellers give them reasons to. That lesson has followed him ever since.

Rope Burn, his 2026 novel, is set in that strange, unique world — it's both a love letter and an honest reckoning with what it costs to love something that won't ever love you back.

Kirk landed in Cincinnati in 1996. The city became the backdrop for almost everything — the wrestling shows, the theatre, his therapy practice, and the writing. He has covered Cincinnati's stages for fifteen years through Off Book Cincinnati, his Substack publication on theatre and being human.

He is not a critic, he'll tell you. He's an observer. There's a difference. Critics evaluate. Observers try to understand what they witnessed and why it mattered.

Kirk has written six books across as many genres — literary fiction, memoir, devotional writing, nonfiction, and a travel guide to surviving Disney World without losing your mind or your family. He is also a produced playwright. He publishes a Substack called Fifty, where he writes personal essays about life, creativity, and standing at the threshold of whatever comes next.

The subjects change. The obsession doesn't: what does it actually mean to show up for your own life? What does it cost to stop hiding the parts of ourselves we're most ashamed of? What becomes possible when we finally feel safe enough to tell the truth?

He hasn't figured it out yet. He just keeps writing about it.

Kirk is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor with Supervisory Endorsement (LPCC-S) in Ohio. He has worked in school-based counseling, psychiatric crisis care at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, clinical supervision, and private practice. He holds two Master's degrees from Cincinnati Bible Seminary.

His private practice, Story and Soul LLC, is based in Mason, Ohio. He sees adults for individual therapy — anxiety, depression, trauma, religious deconstruction, life transitions, but he really loves helping people who — despite everything being OK — can't figure out why they feel so unhappy.

He also offers coaching to writers and creatives anywhere in the world.

He believes healing happens in connection, not in isolation. That's not a clinical theory to him. It's something he's watched happen, over and over, in twenty years of sitting with people.

Kirk turned 50 recently and has been writing about it obsessively — on Substack, a memoir he's writing in real-time, and in a podcast called This is 50, where he has conversations about milestones, meaning, and what we discover when we stop pretending we have it all figured out.

He is a Disney enthusiast and a Disney-centric travel agent through Story and Soul Travel. He takes photographs. He hosts a podcast. He is a creative consultant, Coca-Cola addict, and a pretty good friend.

He lives in the Cincinnati area with strong opinions about ketchup brands, independent pro wrestling, and the relative merits of every bench in any theme park he has ever visited.