The Type Eighteen Books family is growing! Join us in welcoming Kimberly Surette (she, they), author of an upcoming novella we’ll tell you more about soon and a resident of Ogunquit, Maine, a place the Abenakis once called “Beautiful Place by the Sea.” In 2023, Kimberly graduated from the Novel Incubator program at Grub Street in Boston, where they workshopped the first novel-in-stories in the program’s history. The resulting manuscript, “Softer Be They,” was a semifinalist for the YesYes Books Pamet River Prize for Fiction in 2024. Since then, they have written a manuscript for a novel that was selected as one of three finalists for the 2026 Amity Literary Prize. Kimberly works for the Boston Red Sox AA minor league baseball club, the Portland Sea Dogs. In their spare time, they enjoy walks on the beach with their adorable dog, Amoreena.

Our newest author answered our burning questions below!

Who are some of your favorite authors, and why?

Ernest Hemingway and Jhumpa Lahiri are authors who’ve probably exerted the most influence on my approach to writing. Their choices with language are deliberately spare, leaving space for the reader to experience an unexpected jolt of emotion or moment of exquisite beauty. Also, I deeply admire Elizabeth Strout, who, in writing about the most ordinary of human experience and interaction, unearths the profundity of living.

When did you know you were a writer?

I was eleven years old when I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton for the first time. Inspired, I began to translate the daily moments of my existence to the language of fiction in my mind, readying for the novel I would one day write. The summer I turned thirteen, I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. That’s when I understood the transformative power of literary fiction—to spark our collective imagination and to fuel empathy and connection between people. I knew then I’d become an author of literary fiction as soon as life allowed.

Where were you born? Do you think the places of our lives inform our writing?

I was born in a suburb of Boston, a neighborhood of Irish families where the resonant bells of the Roman Catholic Church were audible every hour. I was born to the Boston Red Sox baseball fandom and the requisite loyalty and history, to the exuberance, triumph and loss; an impossible dream accompanies the brilliant colors of autumn, a renewal of hope that arrives with the first buds of spring. I’ve lived all my life near the beaches of the cold Atlantic Ocean and the rolling hills and fieldstone walls so evocative of New England life—in other words, yes, I believe the places of our lives inform our writing!

Where would you vacation—city, country, beach, or mountains?

The sea, always the sea. I think saltwater must be in my blood; I’ve always felt drawn to the ocean. Perhaps it’s because my grandparents immigrated from the great seascapes of Nova Scotia, Maine, and Ireland to settle in towns near Boston Harbor. I’ve never lived further than forty minutes from the ocean. I currently live in Ogunquit, Maine, where I can smell, hear, and see the ocean at all hours of the day. Some of my favorite excursions have been to islands such as Cuba, Cyprus, and Maui, and the places I’d still most like to visit are the coasts of Norway, Japan, Iceland, and Brazil.

What do you think is the most important part of storytelling?

For me, a story worth telling illuminates some aspect of what it means to be human.  If it’s a great story, it fosters empathy, understanding, or connection between humans, and has the power to change us in some small but not insignificant way. As a queer author, I aim to tell stories that include queer characters as they live the universal experiences of discovering identity, navigating family, and falling in love. It is my hope that my stories will contribute, in some small way, to the cultivation of a better, more peaceful world.

We’re excited to share more about Kimberly and their novella; for now, check out their AUTHOR WEBSITE.