KAI HARRIS
Educator + Speaker + Author
Kai Harris is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan, who uses her voice to uplift the Black community through realistic fiction centered on the experiences of Black girls and Black women. Kai's publication credits include Guernica, Lit Hub, The Everygirl, and The New York Times Book Review. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, What the Fireflies Knew, won the 2023 Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Fiction, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and was selected as a Marie Claire Book Club pick, amongst other honors. In addition to fiction, Kai has published poetry, personal essays, and peer-reviewed academic articles on topics related to Black girlhood and womanhood, the slave narrative genre, motherhood, and Black identity. A graduate of Western Michigan University’s PhD program, Kai was the recipient of the university’s Gwen Frostic Creative Writing Award in Fiction for her short story, “While We Live.” Kai now resides in the Bay Area with her family, where she loves to hike and visit the beach—and where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Santa Clara University.
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