Naima Coster

Naima Coster is an Afro-Dominican-American writer known for her debut novel, Halsey Street, which was published in January 2018, and edited by Morgan Parker. Born and raised in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York, her novel also takes place in Brooklyn where topics like gentrification, racial and cultural identity are addressed. Coster is the recipient of numerous awards including a Pushcart Prize nomination. A former editor of CURA and a former mentor of Girls Write Now, Coster is also a proud alumna of Prep for Prep, the leadership development program in New York City aiding high-potential minority students in public, charter, and parochial schools.[1]

Naima Coster
Coster at the 2018 Texas Book Festival
NationalityAmerican
Alma materYale University,
Fordham University,
Columbia University
Genrenovel

Life

Born in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY, Naima Coster holds an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, an MA in English and Creative Writing from Fordham University, and a BA in English and African American studies from Yale University.[2]

Her writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Rumpus, Arts & Letters, Kweli, and Guernica. She is a proud alumna of Prep for Prep, a leadership development program in New York City. She has taught writing to students in jail, youth programs, and universities. She also writes the newsletter, Bloom How You Must.[3] She currently teaches writing in North Carolina, where she lives with her family.

Literary contributions

Naima Coster is a rising literary figure that writes and talks about universally relatable themes like family relationships, racial and cultural identity, and gentrification. Not only is her novel, Halsey Street about the strange losses and intimacies created by gentrification, it is also about one woman's homecoming to a changed Brooklyn neighborhood and her reckoning with her difficult familial past. Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of her novel is that it was edited by Morgan Parker, a female African American editor that has made her way into the white world of publishing.[4]

She wrote her first novel, Halsey Street, because she was worried about the appropriation and reconfiguration of Brooklyn cool, its popular image morphing from working class, industrial, multiethnic, and en epicenter of hip-hop, to the hipster Brooklyn of Girls. She worried, too, about the real, material losses of gentrification - displacement from homes, the closing of businesses, the targeting by police of residents who are viewed by newcomers as dangerous. However, it wasn't all valor or moral conviction that drove Coster to write Halsey Street. She wanted a record of her own losses, too. As a scholarship student at an elite private school, she had moved between the Upper East Side and Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a neighborhood of comparatively little value, although certainly not to her or her family. Gentrification meant the part of her life that had been undervalued was becoming valuable as it was remade to resemble her other life of affluence, whiteness, and prestige. She was hurt and angry at this racist system of valuation. She wanted to push back.[5]

Works [6]

Novels
  • Halsey Street. Amazon Publishing, 2017. ISBN 9781503941175. OCLC 1026852371[7][8][9][10][11]

Essays

Stories

Anthologies

References
  1. "About". Naima Coster. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  2. "About". Naima Coster. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  3. "About". Naima Coster. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  4. "My Editor Was Black | Naima Coster". Catapult. 2017-12-11. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  5. "Who Gets to Write About Gentrification?". Literary Hub. 2018-01-16. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  6. "Other Writing". Naima Coster. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  7. "HALSEY STREET by Naima Coster". Kirkus Reviews.
  8. "This debut novel is an incisive portrait of gentrifying Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn". Vox. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  9. "The Winter Books You Should Be Reading Right Now". Gotham. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  10. "'Halsey Street,' by Naima Coster". SFGate. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  11. "Brooklynite's debut novel is set against a landscape of gentrification". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Retrieved 2018-03-20.
  12. Coster, Naima (2018-05-21). "Who Gets to Be "Brooklyn Born"?". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  13. "Who Gets to Write About Gentrification?". Literary Hub. 2018-01-16. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  14. "My Editor Was Black | Naima Coster". Catapult. 2017-12-11. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  15. cosmonautsavenue (2017-09-17). "Naima Coster | Nonfiction". Cosmonauts Avenue. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  16. "Albums Of Our Lives: Nirvana's Nevermind - The Rumpus.net". therumpus.net. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  17. "More Than Its Parts | A Practical Wedding". A Practical Wedding: Wedding Planning, Inspiration, and Ideas. 2014-07-16. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  18. Nannini, Adam (2014-04-16). "Issue 26". Arts and Letters. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  19. "Naima Coster". www.acentosreview.com. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  20. "Somewhere in New York City". The Observer. 2011-07-31. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  21. Coster, Naima. "NEW YORK STORY; Remembering When Brooklyn Was Mine". query.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  22. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Lila-One-Naima-Coster-ebook/dp/B07S6NNZ5P
  23. Coster, Naima. "Cold". Aster(ix) Journal. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  24. cosmonautsavenue (2016-11-01). "Naima Coster | The Spot". Cosmonauts Avenue. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
  25. "Fiction: Naima Coster". www.acentosreview.com. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
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