I met Kim Coleman Foote at an Authors Guild party in Kansas City, the night before the AWP 2024 conference started. We became embroiled in a rollercoaster of a conversation about the struggles and challenges we deal with daily when writing novels — how our characters take over, the sound of their language, the editing tricks we’ve developed, and the joy that fills us as we create and live with our stories. We closed out the party, and still had so much we wanted to talk about. So, I invited Kim to join me in a “What If? Why Not? How?” episode.
Please click the image below to see Kim read a short excerpt of her award-winning debut novel, Coleman Hill. After her reading, Kim and I talked about the remarkable genesis of Coleman Hill. As we continued our AWP conversation, we explored the nature of fictionalized family memoir (a biomythography), and Kim shared her process, challenges, and triumphs.
Coleman Hill has been 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. Kim has also received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown, the NEA, NYFA, Bread Loaf, Phillips Exeter Academy, Center for Fiction, and Fulbright, and various artists residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, and Hedgebrook, among others. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2022, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Kweli, and elsewhere.