KIMBERLY GARRETT BROWN is Publisher and Executive Editor of Minerva Rising Press, a literary press dedicated to publishing women writers. Her best-selling debut novel, Cora’s Kitchen, won the 2022 Story Circle Network Sarton Women’s Book Award for Historical Fiction and the 2022 Bronze Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for multicultural fiction. It was also a finalist in the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and the 2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. 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. She earned her MFA at Goddard College.

W I N N E R , 2 0 2 2 S A R T O N W O M E N ’ S B O O K A W A R D F O R

H I S T O R I C A L F I C T I O N

B R O N Z E W I N N E R , 2 0 2 2 F O R E W O R D I N D I E S B O O K O F T H E

Y E A R A W A R D F O R M U L T I C U L T U R A L F I C T I O N

"...powerful....Brown speaks to timeless struggles of women who had ambitions that

reached beyond traditional expectations. Moreover, Brown crafts Cora as an

incredibly perceptive narrator and foregrounds race-related issues through an

absorbing plotline with some unexpected turns....An affecting novel of female

friendship and a desire for independence."—KIRKUS REVIEWS

CORA’S KITCHEN

a novel by

Kimberly Garrett Brown

Cora James wants to be an author, but with a full-time job at Harlem’s 135th Street

library and a family to care for, her dreams quickly become buried. Langston Hughes is one of

her library patrons, and one day she writes him a letter, asking for advice on craft. He

encourages Cora to give her dreams a chance. Yet even then she is stymied, forced to take a

leave of absence from her job to cover for her cousin, who temporarily can’t work as a cook for

a rich white family uptown.

Cora doesn’t expect to become friends with Eleanor, the lady of the house,

but they are soon linked together by good intentions, bad luck, and their shared, steadfast

belief that their individual dreams should matter.

Set in 1928, this moving and powerful epistolary novel examines race and gender issues

in early twentieth century America, the role of artists, the powerful pull of family, and the

importance of women’s friendships. Surprising, memorable, and engrossing, CORA’S

KITCHEN announces an important new voice.

KIMBERLY GARRETT BROWN is Publisher and Executive Editor of

Minerva Rising Press, a literary press dedicated to publishing women

writers. Her best-selling debut novel, Cora’s Kitchen, won the 2022

Story Circle Network Sarton Women’s Book Award for Historical

Fiction and the 2022 Bronze Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award

for multicultural fiction. It was also a finalist in the 2018 William

Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and the

2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. 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. She earned her MFA at Goddard College.

Website: https://kimberlygarrettbrown.com

twitter: https://twitter.com/kimgarrettbrown

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimgarrettbrown

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimwrites/

Inanna Publications is one of only a very few independent feminist presses remaining in

Canada. Inanna is committed to publishing fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction by and

about women, and complementing this with relevant non-fiction, that offer new, innovative

and diverse perspectives with the potential to change and enhance women’s lives

everywhere.

https://www.inanna.ca/

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MORE AWARDS & PRAISE

Finalist, 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition

Finalist, 2016 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize

“All told, Cora’s Kitchen is a masterful look at the many ways in which racism, classism and

misogyny overlap and oppress.”—The Indypendent

“Kimberly Garrett Brown has written an outstanding novel which rings true as a depiction of a

budding writer and conveys an important message about overlapping, concurrent forms of

oppression.”—The Compulsive Reader

"A Black woman rebels against racism and class, finding her voice....[Cora is] a transcendent

heroine.”—Foreword Reviews

"Brown’s story digs much deeper than the plight of women. It gets down to the plight of

selfpreservation in a society bent on suppression, not solely based on gender, but also on

class, money, and specifically color....Relationships are tested in a heart-pounding climax."—

Paula Shaffer Robertson, StoryCircle Book Reviews

"… Brown’s characters are faithful to a time, yet timeless, transcending the years to both

painfully and beautifully illustrate the struggles women face to find and

fulfill their vocations. Spellbinding.”—Erika Robuck, national bestselling author of The Invisible

Woman

“… Cora’s Kitchen delves deeply into what it means to be a Black woman with ambition, to

make choices and keep secrets, and to have an unexpected alliance with a white woman that

ultimately may save both of them. In this intimate and expansive novel, Kim Garrett Brown

renders Cora with immense empathy, acknowledging and confronting Cora’s own prejudices

and allegiances and the social pressures that continue to reverberate far beyond this story.

Cora’s Kitchen is a poignant, compelling story in which misfortune and fortune cannot be

teased apart and literature and life have everything to do with each other.” —Anna Leahy,

author of What Happened Was: and Tumor

“Told by a woman of color who dares hold literary ambitions during the Harlem Renaissance,

her story touches on the burdens women of all classes and races frequently carry–– the stress

of having to make a living while dealing with the complexities of marriage and family life, and

at the same time, wanting more for themselves….I suspect many readers, especially women

readers like me, will devour this beautiful and moving story in one sitting. Indeed, Cora’s

Kitchen is destined to become a feminist classic.”—Rosemary Daniell, award-winning author

of Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women’s Lives, and

nine other books of poetry and prose

Inanna Publications; Publication date: September 20, 2022; Fiction/Literary Fiction/Historical

Fiction/First Novel; ISBN 978-1-77133-851-6; 5.5” x 8.25”; Trade paperback; 280 pages;

$22.95 E-book ISBN: 978-1-77133-852-3; $11.99 CA/US

Distributor: University of Toronto Press / Small Press Distribution