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Kima Jones Promotes Black Literary Artists In A Traditionally White-Dominated Field

Kima Jones Promotes Black Literary Artists In A Traditionally White-Dominated Field

Written by Ann Brown

Jan 03, 2019

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It’s not easy for writers of color, particularly poets. Kima Jones, an independent publicist and writer based in Los Angeles, makes the road a little easier for her literary clients.

Publicity plays an important and often misunderstood role in how a book and, ultimately, its writer live in the public imagination, the New York Times reported.  Jones is determined to use her company, Jack Jones Literary Arts, to change the way writers of color, especially women, and their work are received by the world.


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“I think what drew me to publicity and marketing was I really want to see folks win,” Jones said. “At the time so many books that I loved weren’t getting critical attention, and those were always Black books.”

Jones launched Jack Jones Literary Arts in 2015, and has worked with literary successes including Angie Thomas to promote “The Hate U Give.” She worked with Leesa Cross-Smith on her acclaimed debut, “Whiskey and Ribbons. One of her first clients was Tyehimba Jess, whose  “Olio” won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

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In three years, Jack Jones has expanded. In 2017, Jones moved from her home office to a space in downtown Los Angeles and hired her first employee. The company now also offers writers retreats exclusively for women of color, and Jones will soon launch a speaker’s bureau.

Herself a writer, Jones’ poetry has been celebrated. She got the writer’s bug when she was in the fourth grade and met Walter Dean Myers. He praised her work. She started writing whenever she could, despite having to deal with moving from one foster home to another. In 1994, when she was 12 years old, Jones was reunited with her family. Jones briefly attended Sarah Lawrence college but left and joined the workforce, doing a variety of jobs from nurses’ aide to 911 dispatcher to saleswoman for leather goods and luggage. But writing remained her first love. In 2013, she was accepted as a PEN America Emerging Voices fellow.

Besides her own writing, Jones said she always wanted to find a way to help other writers and decided to launch her own company to do so.

“The mission was never just about publicity for me,” Jones said. “I want to work with not just authors, but also publishing houses and presses that are interested in new and profound literature that is taking different risks and challenges.”

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