Kimberly Garrett Brown
Author Interview - Kimberly Garrett Brown
Author of Cora's Kitchen
Cora James, a clerk at Harlem’s 135th Street library, wants to be a writer, but her dreams quickly become buried with a full-time job and a family to care for. She writes a letter to Langston Hughes, one of her library patrons, sharing her desire to write. He encourages Cora to give her dreams a chance. However, when a family crisis lands her in a white woman’s kitchen working as a cook, she unexpectedly becomes friends with the lady of the house. They are soon linked together by good intentions, bad luck, and their shared, steadfast belief that their individual dreams should matter.
Author I draw inspiration from: Ernest Hemingway
Favorite place to read a book: Curled up in my big green chair
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Hadley Richardson from The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: At 12 years old when I read Are You There God It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Hardback
The last book I read: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Pen & paper or computer: Pen & paper
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Ruth Cole from A Widow For One Year by John Irving
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Photographer
Favorite decade in fashion history: the 1950s
Place I’d most like to travel: India
My signature drink: A glass of pinot noir
Favorite artist: Vincent van Gogh
Number one on my bucket list: Seeing the Northern Lights
Anything else you'd like to add: I recently got certified as a Yoga teacher and love the idea of mixing writing and yoga
Find more from the author:
https://www.instagram.com/kimwrites/
https://www.facebook.com/kimgarrettbrown
Author Bio: KIMBERLY GARRETT BROWN is Publisher and Executive Editor of Minerva Rising Press. Her work has appeared in Black Lives Have Always Mattered: A Collection of Essays, Poems and Personal Narratives, The Feminine Collective, Compass Literary Magazine, Today’s Chicago Woman, Chicago Tribune, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her first novel, Cora’s Kitchen, comes out from Inanna Publications in September 2022. It was a finalist in the
2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and the 2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. She earned her MFA at Goddard College. She currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida.