Kima Jones is a poet and the founder of Jack Jones Literary Arts, a Los Angeles-based book publicity agency for black and brown writers where she worked as lead strategist on all publicity campaigns. In 2017, Kima founded the Jack Jones Literary Arts retreat—a two-week respite and book incubator for black and brown nonbinary and women writers. The Los Angeles Times called Kima "2018's literary breakthrough" and "an important new voice on the national stage." In 2019, she founded Culture, Too—a mentorship conference for black and brown cultural critics.
Kima serves as Consigliere to Kimbilio, a community of writers and scholars committed to developing, empowering and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories, as Vice Chair to POWERHOUSE, a residency for New York City based Black, Brown, Queer, Trans, & Othered Folx, and as a member of Black Mountain Institute’s International Council. Kima was recognized as the 2019 Recipient of the Energizer Award for Exceptional Acts of Literary Citizenship by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP).
In the spring of 2021, Kima joined Triangle House Literary as an agent. Her clients include David Haynes and Rochelle Spencer. She is interested in representing literary fiction, essay collections, memoir, hybrid texts, commercial fiction, poetry, speculative fiction, science fiction, and horror. She’s a developmental editor who brings more than a decade of marketing and publicity experience into her agenting negotiations.
Kima is currently closed to manuscript submissions. Please check back in the future.
Photo credit: Self-portrait, 2022.
More about Kima Jones
Kima is at work on her first book, Butch, a memoir, forthcoming from Knopf. She has been published at GQ, Guernica, Poets and Writers, the New York Times, McSweeney's and in the anthologies Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History and Her Own Accord: American Women on Identity, Culture, and Community. Her hybrid poem-essay “Homegoing AD” appears in the New York Times Best Seller, The Fire this Time, edited by Jesmyn Ward and was featured in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2017. Her short story "Nine" received notable mention in Best American Science Fiction 2015. She is the 2022 winner of the Granum Foundation Prize. She has received institutional support from Yaddo, MacDowell, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Kima lives in Harlem and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at The City College of New York, CUNY.
Media Links
Kima Jones on Why She’s Ready For Her New Role as a Literary Agent, Okayplayer Exclusive, May 2021
Triangle House Literary announces expansion, hires literary powerhouse Kima Jones, LitHub, May 2021
L.A. poet who works to amplify Black voices just sold her own memoir, ‘Butch,’ to Knopf, LA Times, November 2020
These Powerful Women Are Changing The Literary Landscape, Refinery 29, March 2020
Kima Jones, the Founder of Jack Jones Literary Arts, Is Taking the Publishing Industry by Storm, New York Times, December 2018
Presenting The First-Ever Bitch 50, 2017
Select Work
“AD 2012”
Eid al-Fitr Celebrated Through Distinct Family Recipes
Select Conversations
Kima Jones sits down with Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, Edwidge Danticat, and Jesmyn Ward.