About Kesi Augustine 

Kesi Augustine was born in Syracuse, New York, and moved to New York City during her adolescence. She is a lifelong creative writer and book lover. She earned her AA while attending Bard High School Early College (Manhattan), then her BA (Williams College), MA, and Ph.D. in English literature at New York University in 2018. Her dissertation, “The Invisible Reader,” discusses the empowering vision that 21st century African American children’s literature offers its underrepresented readers, especially through its stylistic innovation to help correct the impact of negative stereotypes and deficit teaching practices. It builds on research she conducted at Williams College and Oxford University. 

Kesi practiced creative writing during various workshops for teens sponsored by organizations like High 5 Tickets to the Arts and 826NYC. These organizations encouraged her to publish her art criticism and to write her first full-length novel in verse. Every summer Kesi read hundreds of books from local Queens libraries, and has fond memories of sitting by the basketball court while buried in a Stephen King novel. 

Kesi published her first poem, “African Dance,” in Skipping Stones at age seven. Her first short story, “Right Judgment,” appeared in Young Voices (2002). Kesi won the Poetry in Motion New York City Subway Centennial contest for her poem "Sleepless," which was featured on New York subways for a year (2004-2005).

Since then, Kesi has been featured in publications that reflect her wide-ranging interests, including Gay City News, The Journal of African American Studies, USA TODAY, The Huffington Post, For Harriet, Winter Tangerine, The Crawl Space Journal, Haiku Narrativo, and Resurrection.

Kesi is signed to Red Fox Literary Agency and represented by Stephanie Fretwell-Hill.