Kimberly Garrett Brown, author of Cora’s Kitchen, knew from age twelve that she wanted to be a writer, but it wasn’t until she read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones that writing took a more prominent place in her life. And it wasn’t until she received a rejection slip on a Christmas Eve that she realized there was no interest in the type of stories she wrote and decided to start her own literary press. She created Minerva Rising Press six months after graduating from Goddard College and served as its publisher and executive editor. “Just as the Goddess Minerva represented creativity, wisdom, medicine, commerce, arts, and education, our press provides the opportunity for women artists to share their diverse experiences and talents in order to nurture a collective creativity.”
Kimberly grew up in a suburb of Detroit and graduated from The University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. “I met my husband during my freshman year. We got married the summer after I graduated. At the time, I thought I wanted to be a marriage and family counselor. Though I loved writing, I didn’t know much about how to make that into a career. Not to mention my family didn’t see it as a viable option,” says Kimberly.
Instead, she pursued a career in social work and worked in the foster care system for several years. “When I started to have children, writing was pushed further into the margins of my life, though I still dreamed of publishing a best-selling novel one day. I transitioned from social work into staff development training and motivational speaking. But in my heart, I always wanted to be a writer.”
Kimberly took a writing correspondence course that got her writing again a few years after graduating from college. “l filled copious notebooks, took writing workshops, and eventually returned to school for a master of science in written communication. Cora’s Kitchen was my creative thesis.”
A historical novel set in Harlem in the 1920s, Cora’s Kitchen is Kimberly’s first book. “The emergence of Black creativity and innovation drew me to Harlem,” Kimberly says. “The writers of the Harlem Renaissance beautifully captured the essence of life as a Black person in America. So much of what they wrote about still rings true today. I wanted to celebrate the period. I also wanted to explore the interconnectedness of women regardless of race or social-economic status.”
The author’s other publications are short stories and essays that appeared in Black Lives Have Always Mattered: A Collection of Essays; Poems and Personal Narratives; The Feminist Collective; Compass Literary Magazine; Today’s Chicago Woman; Chicago Tribune; and The Rumpus.
The advice Kimberly received that she believes benefitted her the most was to trust the process. “Writing takes time. It ebbs; it flows. Trusting the process lights the way when it becomes challenging and/or tedious. I would tell other writers to make a commitment to their writing. Do the work. It will not always be easy. There will be times when no one values your work. But value yourself, value your writing. Value that longing in your heart to write.”
“Winning the Sarton Award,” says Kimberly, “has been confirmation that my work matters, that stories like Cora’s Kitchen matter. It encourages me to keep writing historical stories about Black women.”
Kimberly lives in Boca Raton, Florida and is currently in the discovery stage of writing a new novel based on Detroit in the 1950s. She talks about her writing on a podcast found at http://allwriteinsincity.com/.
