photo: Benoit Cortet
Kim Adrian is the author of two books of lyric criticism: Dear Knausgaard (described by James Wood, literary critic for The New Yorker, as “a delight from start to finish”); and Sock (part of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons Series). Her memoir, The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet, was a Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist. Kim's other work includes the libretto for the opera The Strange Child (music by Julia Werntz) and The Shell Game: Writers Play with Borrowed Forms, an anthology of lyric essays praised by a review in The Millions as providing “a sense of hope about literature and its capacity for evolution and change." Three of her works, including her book Sock, have been translated into Mandarin. Several of her essays and stories have been listed as Notable or Distinguished in the Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies. She received her BA from Barnard College (Cultural Anthropology) and her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Kim has taught creative writing at Brown University, Grub Street, and the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop. She lives in Boston and is currently working on a novel about the German Romantic writer E.T.A. Hoffmann. Excerpts from this work-in-progress have won the support of a fellowship at the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus in Schwandorf (Germany), a special residency at the Villa Concordia in Bamberg (Germany), and a 2025 Individual Artist Grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.