Welcome!
Hi. I’m Kim Foster.
I’m a social scientist, and a James Beard award-winning memoirist. I wrote a book called The Meth Lunches: Food + Longing in an American City with St. Martin’s Press about food at the intersection of mental illness, family separation, poverty, addiction, trauma, and incarceration. It’s about how we as society are complicit in keeping people down, and what we can do to have stronger families and communities. And it’s about the ways food and cooking can help or hinder that. I’d be thrilled and honored if you read it.
I was formerly an Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Pace University in New York City. I still do a lot of guest lecturing and speaking at conferences, like I did here, at the Forum Lecture at the University of Las Vegas.
I’ve written for or been written about in such publications as the Washington Post, Slate, Guardian, The Rumpus (love this talk with the great Phyllis Grant), Bon Appetit and more. Some fun reviews of my book and my work appear here in John Birdsall’s brilliant newsletter, here in this epic piece from Las Vegas Weekly, here from Kirkus Review, here from FERN, here from Shelf Awareness, and here from Publishers Weekly.
I post essays here on Thursdays (sometimes Fridays if I don’t have my shit together). I will take breaks now and again. This newsletter is FREE for everyone, no paywalls. But I do accept donations to help support the writing I do here - if you like the work, and are able, thank you! It matters and it makes a difference.
I’m a former New Yorker who has fallen in love with the desert and West Coast life and living in the beautiful-weirdness of Las Vegas, Nevada with, the love of my life, David, an Aussie, who produces shows around the world, Lucy (20), Edie (18), Raffi (13) and Desi (9), 2 dogs, 2 cats, 5 bunnies + a family of chickens. I’m also an adoptee and two of our kids came from fostercare. David and I are currently foster parents and are honored to support and advocate for teens in the system.
You can reach me in these places:
Email: Kim@FosterEntertainment.net
Chat on Substack or on the Substack Notes app.
Agent: Stacey Glick / Dystel, Goderich + Bourret / sglick@dystel.com
I am @KimintheWest for all the socials I never use anymore.
And if you like the words and the ideas, please give the newsletter a share on social media and with your IRL friends.
Thank you, as always, for reading. - Kim
