Graci Kim

INFO

Name	Graci Kim (she/her)
Born	1986
Place of Residence	Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Ethnicities	Korean
Artform	Literature
Decades Active	2020s

ABOUT

Graci Kim is a New York Times-bestselling children’s fantasy author. Inspired by folktales her 할머니 halmeoni (grandmother) told her, Kim incorporates Korean mythology into her writing: a response to the racial bullying she experienced at school and the desire to write the kinds of books her younger self would have enjoyed.

Born in Korea, Kim migrated to the North Shore in Tāmaki Makaurau with her family when she was three years old, recalling how in addition to racial bullying, “her teachers started taking her out of class to act as an interpreter for an influx of new immigrants.”

She went on to have a varied and eventful career, including running away to the circus when she was 16 — “I fell in love with a Colombian tightrope walker” — and working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (with posts in Taipei and Beijing), during which time she hosted her own cooking show, Graci in the Kitchen, and founded My Thingymabob, a company that turned children’s drawings into plushie toys. A series of traumatic events in her personal life pushed her into pursuing writing, including temporarily going blind and losing her halmeoni (grandmother).

Kim is most well known for writing the Gifted Clans trilogy: The Last Fallen Star (2021), The Last Fallen Moon (2022), and The Last Fallen Realm (2023). All three are published by Rick Riordan Presents, a branch of the Disney-Hyperion Publishing family. The Gifted Clans trilogy follows Riley Oh, who is adopted into a family of Korean healing witches in Los Angeles, but realises she does not possess magic herself. Throughout the three books, Oh goes on dangerous adventures, fights mythical monsters, saves her family, and discovers her own identity. The Sapling has praised “the richly imagined world [Kim] has created” while Kirkus has described the series as “engaging and snappy” with a “worlds-shattering conclusion”. The series has been translated into multiple languages and has been optioned by Disney Channel for a live-action television series.

Kim used to write under the pen name ‘Graci Goldhart’ to hide her Asian heritage and delivered a TEDx talk in 2018 about how and why she reclaimed her Korean last name. “I feared I’d be written off as an ‘Asian writer’ who was too niche to reach a mainstream audience.” It is this same strategic approach, however, that has enabled her to develop writing into a full-time career. This has included identifying publishing trends and taking part in Twitter pitch contests to attract potential agents.

Kim was awarded the Best New Talent Award at the 2022 Sir Julius Vogel Awards, which celebrate science-fiction, fantasy, and horror literature from Aotearoa. Her books have been New York Times bestsellers, nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Children’s Book, voted into the Whitcoulls' Kids Top 50 Books, and listed as a Barnes & Noble Young Reader Pick.

Graci Kim holds a BA(Hons) in Spanish and Latin American Studies from the University of Auckland. She currently lives in Onekiritea Hobsonville, Tāmaki Makaurau with her husband and daughter.