author
University of Idaho
Drawn from life in Idaho logging camps and small towns, these stories and memoirs are known for their clear-eyed emotion and sense of place. The work often explores family, memory, survival, and the complicated pull of home.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Kim Barnes is an American author of fiction, memoir, and personal essays who was born in Lewiston, Idaho, in 1958. Reliable sources describe her as a writer shaped by her childhood in the isolated logging communities of northern Idaho, an experience that became central to her memoirs and novels.
She is the author of books including In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country, Hungry for the World, A Country Called Home, and In the Kingdom of Men. Her writing has earned major recognition, including a PEN Center USA Literary Award for A Country Called Home, and she has also served as Poet Laureate of Idaho.
Barnes has been closely connected with the University of Idaho as a longtime teacher and professor of English. Alongside her teaching, she has built a body of work admired for its honest voice, strong settings, and deep attention to the lives of people in the American West.