Kim Coleman Foote is the author of the debut novel, Coleman Hill, named a finalist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, NAACP Image Award, and Audie Award, and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Coleman Hill, inspired by her family’s Great Migration journey from Alabama and Florida to Vauxhall, New Jersey, circa 1916–80s, 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, 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, relationships between Africa and its diaspora, and intersections of race, gender, and class. Currently in progress is Salt Water Sister, a novel about Ghana and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which weaves the stories of three young women in the eighteenth century and present day.
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.
An avid music lover and dancer, Kim created an online radio show dedicated to Congolese and African pop music. She can be found blogging (and singing) there as her alter ego, kimi kimiana.
Kim received an MFA in creative writing from Chicago State University and a BA in sociology & anthropology, concentration in Black Studies, from Swarthmore College.