Kim Edwards (born May 4, 1958)^[1] is an Americanauthor andeducator. She was born in Killeen, Texas, grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, and graduated from Colgate University and The University of Iowa, where she earned an MFA in fiction and an MA in linguistics. She is the author of a story collection,The Secrets of a Fire King, which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; her stories have been published inThe Paris Review, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and many other periodicals. She has received many awards for the short story as well, including a Pushcart Prize, the National Magazine Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and inclusion in bothThe Best American Short Stories and the Symphony Space program 'Selected Shorts'. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania and Kentucky Arts Councils, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, her first novel, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Award pick and became a word-of-mouth best-seller, spending 122 consecutive weeks on theNew York Times Best Seller list, 20 of those weeks at #1.The Memory Keeper's Daughter won the Kentucky Literary Award and the British Book Award, and was chosen as Book of the Year for 2006 byUSA Today. Her second novel,The Lake of Dreams, an Independent Booksellers pick, was also an international best seller; her work has been published in more than 32 countries. Currently, Kim is working on a new novel, as well as a collection of related stories.

Edwards was born inKilleen, Texas. When she was two months old, her family moved to upstate New York, where she was raised.^[2] Edwards began college atCayuga Community College. She transferred toColgate University in 1979, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1981. In 1983, Edwards received a master's degree from the university ofIowa Writers' Workshop. Edwards earned a second Master of Arts degree in linguistics, also from the University of Iowa, in 1987.^[1]

She wrote theshort story collection,The Secrets of a Fire King (1997), which was an alternate for the 1998PEN/Hemingway Award, and has won both aWhiting Award^[3] and theNelson Algren Award.^[4]

Edwards teaches writing at theUniversity of Kentucky.^[5]

Edwards' 2005 novel,The Memory Keeper's Daughter, was named the 2006 Book of the Year byUSA Today.^[6] Her most recent novel,The Lake of Dreams,New York Times Best Seller,^[7] was published in January 2011.^[8][9]

Edwards married Thomas Clayton in 1987. Edwards and Clayton, who have two daughters together (Abigail and Naomi), reside inLexington, Kentucky.^[1]

• The Secrets of a Fire King. WW Norton. 1997.ISBN 978-0-39304-026-5.
  • "The Great Chain of Being," Originally Published inThe Paris Review, Issue 120, Fall 1991
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Viking Adult. 2005.ISBN 978-0-67003-416-1.9780670034161.
• The Lake of Dreams. Viking. 2011.ISBN 978-0-67002-217-5.

• "Paradise".Ploughshares. Emerson College. Fall 1990.
• "Aristotle's Lantern".Zoetrope: All-Story.6 (1). Spring 2002. Archived fromthe original on 2015-09-08. Retrieved2015-09-10.
• "In the Garden".Ploughshares. Emerson College. Fall 2003.

• University of Kentucky profileArchived 2009-05-05 at theWayback Machine
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• Short Biography by BookBrowse
• The Memory Keeper's PodcastArchived 2012-07-30 at theWayback Machine
• Official site for The Memory Keeper's Daughter

• Living people
• 1958 births
• Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
• People from Killeen, Texas
• Colgate University alumni
• 21st-century American novelists
• Novelists from Texas
• Novelists from New York (state)
• American women short story writers
• 21st-century American women novelists
• 21st-century American short story writers

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• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata