(Note: KIMBILIO thanks Julia for her ongoing service to our community. Since 2014, she has graciously volunteered to prepare manuscript material for our retreat.) Andrea Lee writes the kind of dazzling, lyrical prose that delights with its boldness—over three acclaimed novels, a New York Times Notable short story collection, and many essays and articles in publications […]
Congratulations to Kimbilio Fellows Lesley Arimah (’15) and Tope Folarin (’15) for being nominated for the 2016 Caine Prize. The Caine Prize for African Writing is awarded annually to an African writer of a short story published in English. Tope won this award previously in 2013. At a ceremony in London on July 4th, South […]
For the Kimbilio panel at AWP ’16, Cole Lavalais (’13, ’15) presented these remarks on directionality in fiction: Several years ago during my first semester in graduate school, some of my classmates and I went out to a local watering hole after a rather tedious writing workshop. Which, by the way, was nothing new. I […]
Returning Fellows Christi Cartwright (’13), Rosalyn Story (’13), and Andy Johnson (’14) will join the class of ’16 for the Annual Retreat in Taos. We asked our vets to offer some advice to our Newbie Kimbees. Christi Cartwright Says: Accept writing friendships and kindnesses from whomever/wherever they are given. Writing is a lonely venture and kindness helps […]
Cole Lavalais’s arresting debut novel, The Summer of the Cicadas, engages with a mother-daughter relationship, mental health, and first love, set on the campus of small black college in the South. The novel’s main character Viola (Vi) Moon is still emotionally fragile after a recent hospitalization at a mental health facility, but she’s also determined […]
Sanderia Faye (’13) nominee in Debut Fiction for MOURNER’S BENCH Naomi Jackson (faculty ’17) nominee in Debut Fiction for THE STAR SIDE OF BIRD HILL Angela Flournoy (faculty ’15) nominee in Fiction for THE TURNER HOUSE The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award TM honors the best in Black literature in the United States and around the globe. […]
Finding Michelle Kwan: A Black Boy’s Childhood on Ice By Dennis Norris II Long before it actually happened, I tried to tell the world that I was a figure skater. I tried on Saturday afternoons, back in the nineties when skating was on TV every weekend. I tried by pushing all the furniture to the edges […]
THE BEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING from RIPEN THE PAGE LITERARY MAGAZINE I am a poet and public interest advocate (lawyer, and now clinical professor of law). Everyday, I work with words, on the page, and as poets like to say – the stage, in order to impart some truth about the lives we lead and […]
Sex Coffee by Desiree Cooper You walk into the coffeehouse and pick a seat beside the thin woman whose beauty is coiled into tight vines of hair. Never seen her here before, you think as you slide into the bench beside her, careful not to get caught looking in her direction. You take off your […]
In Cole Lavalais’ debut novel Summer of the Cicadas, Viola “Vi” Moon hopes to leave her experience at a mental health facility behind when she enrolls in a small black college in the south, but the stability she hoped she’d gain fractures more quickly than she anticipated. Vi thinks the best way to regain her […]
