Short Bio
Kim Coleman Foote is the author of the acclaimed novel, Coleman Hill (SJP Lit, 2023), which blends fact and fiction about her family’s Great Migration journey to suburban New Jersey, where Kim grew up. The novel was a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize and NAACP Image Award, among others, and was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Additional honors include literature fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Kimbilio, residencies at Hedgebrook, Yaddo, and MacDowell, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Ghana, where Kim conducted fieldwork for her second novel, Salt Water Sister. Forthcoming from SJP Lit in 2027, the novel explores women’s resistance to enslavement in the 1700s and a fight for reparations in the present day.
Long Bio
Kim Coleman Foote is the author of Coleman Hill, named a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Debut Author, Crook’s Corner Book Prize, and Audie Award for Multi-Voiced Performance, and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Inspired by Kim’s family’s Great Migration journey from Alabama and Florida to Vauxhall, New Jersey, circa 1916–80s, Coleman Hill examines the rarely told stories of black migrants in the Northern suburbs.
An award-winning writer of fiction and memoir, Kim’s work has appeared most recently in The Best American Short Stories 2022, Iron Horse Literary Review, Ecotone, and The Rumpus.
Major honors include writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Poets & Writers, Phillips Exeter Academy, Center for Fiction, Bread Loaf, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Hedgebrook.
Kim grew up in New Jersey, where she started writing at the age of seven(ish). Her work elevates marginalized stories with a focus on African American history, slavery, people who resist oppression, relationships between Africa and its diaspora, and the intersections of race, gender, and class. Her forthcoming novel, Salt Water Sister (anticipated 2027, SJP Lit), examines Ghana and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, weaving the stories of three young women who fight against enslavement in the 1700s and fight for reparations in the 1990s.
Other honors include fellowship writing residencies from the Anderson Center, Hambidge, and Vermont Studio Center, Kimbilio, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for creative nonfiction. Kim also received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research for Salt Water Sister in Ghana, where she inadvertently wrote a memoir, excerpts of which have been published.
An avid music lover and dancer, Kim created an online radio show dedicated to Congolese and African pop music. She has blogged (and sung) there under her alter ego, kimi kimiana.
Kim received an MFA in Creative Writing from Chicago State University and a BA in Sociology & Anthropology, with a concentration in Black Studies, from Swarthmore College.