Kim Coleman Foote

Kim Coleman Foote is a writer from New Jersey. Her creative nonfiction and fiction has appeared most recently in Black Renaissance Noire, Potomac Review, Crab Orchard Review, and WorldView, and has been anthologized in Just Like a Girl, Woman.Period, and Homelands. Selected awards include the inaugural 2008 PALF Africana Creative Nonfiction Award to Ghana, a 2008 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, and a 2002-03 Fulbright Fellowship to Ghana. Currently based in New York, she is working on a memoir about Ghana and a novel about the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

CONCERNING CHANGE

A writer friend asked me recently if I’ve been changed by my latest project: a novel about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, told in different black women’s voices. The change actually began before the story came: ten years ago, I entered a former slave dungeon in Ghana and allowed visions of the past to haunt me. After having experienced the myriad challenges of my 20s, during which this novel grew inside me, I can say that my characters have taught me to have a less romantic but also a less cynical outlook on relationships. These women, who come from opposing social and economic backgrounds, grow to love and trust each other after initially despising one another. In essence, I hope to do the same as a writer: to invite readers worldwide to vicariously embody lives seemingly unlike their own, especially from cultures they have learned to mistrust or devalue. Change isn’t always an avalanche or a volcano eruption. It can begin even when we open ourselves to new sights, tastes, smells, and feelings. I dare you to stow away your stereotypes and enter the worlds I create, to witness how humanity—our similar emotional reactions to injustice, love, and the like—can unite us.

CONTRIBUTING TO CHANGE

Read an excerpt from Kim’s novel-in-progress, Elmina.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kim will be reading on Thursday, Nov. 5, 8pm at:
kiva cafe ~ rediscover your senses
139 reade st (2/3/A/C/E to chambers st.)
nyc, ny 10013
212-587-1198
www.kivacafe.com