Discipline/Field: Historical Fiction

Based in: London, England

About: Katherine Lim is passionate about writing fiction that challenges how we view history. She holds a BA in English Literature from Brown University and an MA in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Her writing centers around gender, sexuality, and female agency and has been recognized with prestigious awards and writers’ conferences. At Yefe Nof she has the support of a family residency to face the challenges of creating art as a single parent.

Project Title: American Heroine explores the hidden lives of women and the gaps in the historical record. Set in the 1950s—the McCarthy era—and the 1960s, when, regardless of social class, queer people were under pressure to deny their identities, it presents a well-researched alternate history based on a crisis of confidence in the life of Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, and her wish for a “year off” in 1966 from her disintegrating marriage. The novel asks the question, what if two of the most iconic women of the twentieth century – Grace Kelly and Jackie Kennedy – were lovers, but at its heart lies a larger theme about the reason we do not have enough evidence about the personal histories of LGBTQ people.

While Katherine prepares her final manuscript edits she will also be drawing on inspiration from Yefe Nof’s landscape for her novel-in-progress, Monarch of the Dailies.

Relevant Links: TBD