🌏 "Collectively speaking, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that humanity is dealing with something that looks a lot like mental illness writ large. We’re suffering. And the planet is suffering because of us."
📖 "This notion that we have to separate the work from the writer is artificial and in reality nobody does that. We all have incredibly personal responses to literature. . . . But you can at least acknowledge the messiness of it all."
🧦 "The object of the sock interests me precisely because it’s so ordinary. So ostensibly boring. What’s to say about a sock? (I liked that challenge.)"
🛣️ "An essay is an investigation, a very organic thing. Every sentence you commit to it opens up the field of discovery a little more and you basically let it work to take you where it needs to go."
🤝 "I understood that I had to trust my readers to grasp the nuances of the story on their own steam, and that that process might take a long time. It might take the entire length of the book."
✨ "Although I'm happy whenever someone finds something beautiful in my work, I'm not personally interested anymore in writing beautifully. I'm interested in illuminating my subject, whatever that might be. It gives me a lot more energy to work in this way."
😁 "Being a people pleaser can be a very dangerous proposition when it comes to writing."
🦡 "The honey badger makes a great mascot for all serious writing. It’s tenacious, a little insane, it gets the job done, even if it almost dies trying. But most of all, it 'don’t care.' That’s so key to writing well—outrunning your own demons."
"What Happens When You Write Karl Ove Knausgaard a Letter?"
Originally published on New Books Network, featured on LitHub
Originally published on New Books Network, featured on LitHub
"The Face Behind the Mask"
The Colin McEnroe Show, WNPR Connecticut Public Radio
The Colin McEnroe Show, WNPR Connecticut Public Radio
"You Can Keep Your Socks On"
The Colin McEnroe Show, WNPR Connecticut Public Radio
The Colin McEnroe Show, WNPR Connecticut Public Radio
"Kim Adrian Recommends"
Poets & Writers
Poets & Writers
Please check back later for new upcoming events.
selected past events ▼
Brookline Public High School
Whipple Fellowship Guest Speaker
February 9, 2023
Lily Pad Lounge, Cambridge MA
"Big Screen" viewing party for The Strange Child
September 29, 2022
Online
Book Launch for the U.K. edition of Dear Knausgaard.
September 27, 2022
Wheaton College
Visiting Artist - Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet and a lecture on writing about family trauma.
July 3, 2022
Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany
Creative Arts Residency Studio Open House. Reading from new work.
June 17 and 18, 2022
Kelly Strayhorn Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA
Premier of The Strange Child, a chamber opera with music by Julia Werntz and libretto by Kim Adrian
April 11, 2022
University of Hartford, CT
Cardin Reading Series — a reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet
October 2, 2021
Norfolk, CT
Haystack Book Festival - "The Hidden Lives of Ordinary Things"
June 10, 2021
Cambridge, MA
Boston LitCrawl - "The Art of (Writing About) Reading"
April 1, 2021
Online
Arlington Author Salon - "Books about Books"
March 4, 2021
Online
AWP Conference - "Close Readings: Experiments in Bibliomemoir"
September 3, 2020
Online
Brookline Booksmith Reading from Dear Knausgaard
August 31, 2020
Online
Essay Daily Salon - "Books About Books"
March 12, 2019
NYC
PageTurners Series - "Head to Toe" - Readings from Bloomsbury's Object Lessons Series
November 29, 2018
University of New Hampshire
Lecture and Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet for UNH Writers' Series
November 4, 2018
Denver, CO
Counterpath Press Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet
November 3, 2018
Phoenix, AZ
NonfictioNOW Conference - "Writing the Hermit Crab Essay"
October 30, 2018
San Francisco, CA
Green Apple Books Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet
October 18, 2018
NYC
Shakespeare & Co. Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet
October 2, 2018
Boston
Brookline Booksmith Reading from The Twenty-Seventh Letter of the Alphabet
June 2, 2017
Reykjavik, Iceland
NonfictioNOW Conference - “Microhistories: Writing Deeply About Narrow Subjects.”
April 29, 2016
Boston
The Muse and the Marketplace Writers' Conference - "The Lyric Essay"
April 16, 2016
Boston, MA
The Art of Life After Workshop Series - "Grounded Words: a Body-Centered Workshop for Survivors of Sexual Violence"
January 28, 2016
NYC
McNally Jackson Bookstore Object Lessons Reading, Sock
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David Fenton—Anti-war Demonstration, New York City, 1968