Kim McLarin is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels and four nonfiction works, including the bibliomemoir Bookmarked: James Baldwin's Another Country. Her most recent work, Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me and Has Failed, was awarded 2024 NonFiction Honors by the Massachusetts Book Awards. 

Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Washington Post, Slate, the New England Review, The Sewanee Review, The Boston Globe, The Sun Magazine and other publications, and been twice listed in Best American Essays. Her short fiction has appeared in Confrontation, Solstice, Calaloo and other publications. She is a former staff writer for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press. She is a frequent public speaker and panelist and former host of the Emmy-Award winning show Basic Black, Boston's long-running television program devoted to African-American themes which aired on WGBH. 

mclarin taming mclarin taming mclarin jump Mclarin womanish mclarin divorceBook cover with titleBook cover reading James Baldwin's Another Country

About

Education

B.A., Duke University

Areas of Expertise

  • Creative Writing
  • Culture & Race
  • Humanities & Cultural Studies
  • Journalism
  • Literature
  • Online Education
  • Writing

Publications

Taming it Down

1999

Meeting of the Waters

2001

Growing Up X, co-author

2002

Jump at the Sun

2006

Divorce Dog: Men, Motherhood and Midlife

2012

Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Life and Love

2019

Everyday Something Has Tried to Kill Me and Has Failed

2023

Awards & Honors

Fiction Honor Book, of the Massachusetts Center for the Book (for Jump at the Sun)

2007

Fiction Honor Book, of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (for Jump at the Sun)

2007