Kim Coleman Foote is the author of the novel, Coleman Hill (SJP Lit/Zando), inspired by her family’s experience of the Great Migration from Alabama and Florida to Vauxhall, New Jersey, c. 1916–80s.
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, Yaddo, MacDowell, and Hedgebrook.
Kim grew up in New Jersey, where she started writing at the age of seven(ish). Her work focuses on marginalized histories, relationships between Africa and its diaspora, and 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 writing residencies from the Anderson Center, Hambidge, and Vermont Studio Center, a Kimbilio Fiction Fellowship, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for creative nonfiction. Kim also received a Fulbright Fellowship to conduct research about the slave trade in Ghana, where she inadvertently wrote a memoir about her experiences.
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.