“i am southern funk. born in 1976 on purpose. my literary art resembles what society hates_the free thinker. i am the rebel. i am the cause. i am the effect. i produce art with a spiritual calling. i find objects. i create. i am text. i have an alter ego. i am brown-skinned. i express. i examine. i transition on canvas. i am the untraditional.funk.art.space. i am kYm -aka- atlas brown.”
The writer kYmberly Keeton began her creative journey with poetry in the early 2000s, which quickly became both her passion and her primary medium for expression. Based in Fort Worth, Texas, she founded Black Coffee's Poetic Expressions, an agency that represented African American poets, showcasing her work and providing the title for her first published collection.
She independently sold handcrafted poetry books from her vehicle for $10 each. Her critically acclaimed piece, Southern Girl, was a frequent performance request. Keeton performed under the moniker Black Coffee, captivating audiences at open mic events across Fort Worth, Austin, Dallas, and Chicago. As her profile grew, she began organizing open mic nights and booking poets throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She was later appointed poetry curator at the Arlington Museum of Art in Arlington, Texas, where she led the After Hours poetry series for three years, becoming the first African American woman to do so in the city.
She next moved into independent publishing, founding Literafeelya, an online creative arts magazine that released 20 issues in the early 2000s and a commemorative print issue in the following decade. During this period, she also began writing her first novella, Charlie.Browne.2.Butaflies.&.Painky.Lillies, conceived at Amsterdam Coffee Bar in Dallas.
In 2001, Keeton began a new chapter as an African American journalist, starting as City Editor for Rolling Out Magazine in Dallas and later serving as Entertainment Editor at the Dallas Weekly Newspaper. Reigniting her love for writing, she enrolled in the English-Creative Writing program at the University of Houston Honors College in 2005. In 2006, she received the prestigious Susan K. Karchmer Fiction Award for her novella, an honor presented by the University of Houston English Department, recognizing her exceptional literary talent.
At UH, she co-founded and edited Songhai News, a pioneering African American student newspaper. She went on to graduate with a B.A. in English-Creative Writing. Around this time, she also launched Soflymythirties, a long-running blog and radio show. Creatively, she adopted the pen name atlas brown to separate her academic and professional identity from her artistic work.
Her alter ego, atlas brown, emerged in 2010 and soon gained recognition among global writers. The experimental fiction collection she curated under this name remains archived on Tumblr, offering a window into her evolving voice. In 2018, she was selected as a Key West Literary Writing Fellow, marking a major career milestone.
In 2020, Novella Media published the debut edition of atlas brown’s short fiction collection, Emerging from the Wind: Love in the Time of Corona. Her writing was also featured in the 2020 Special Edition of 50in50: Love in the Time of Corona, presented by the Billie Holiday Theatre—a project that invited authors to reflect on Love in the Time of Cholera by Nobel Laureate Gabriel García Márquez.
After a meaningful pause to complete her doctoral studies, Dr. kYmberly Keeton is returning to her roots in storytelling with renewed purpose. She has launched The Beautiful Chaos, a new Substack curated under her pen name, atlas brown. The debut post, “From Ph.D. to Purpose: Reclaiming Black Life and Love,” weaves together scholarship, survival, and the art of vision amid chaos. Through cultural critique, personal reflection, and vibrant dialogue, Keeton invites readers to engage deeply with life’s complexities.
In 2026, Keeton will re-release her novella and introduce a new creative-scholar journal, Ebony Praxis, featuring her work and bringing fresh perspective and vitality to her literary legacy.
