Nicole “Cole” Asong Nfonoyim-Hara* is a writer committed to liberation and healing through story and the power of language, narrative, and the written word. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in NYC, her Cameroonian, Afro-Costa Rican and Indian roots/routes ground her creative work and practice. She is founder and director of Griot Arts, an arts hub centering Black cultural expression. Her work has taken her around the country and the world. Her writing has been recognized by the Loft Literary Center, Minnesota State Arts Board, Givens Foundation for African American Literature, and VONA/Voices of Our Nation. Her arts writing has been featured on Mn Artists and exhibition catalogues for the MCAD-Jerome Foundation Fellowships for Early Career Artists and the Great Northern Festival blog. Her writing on being Black and multiracial appears in the anthology Other Tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out and her discontinued blog Mixed Dreams. She serves as host and associate producer of a weekly civic and cultural affairs show about Rochester, MN on the local PBS network. A former Fulbright scholar in cultural and applied anthropology, she holds a BA from Swarthmore College and earned her graduate degree in Migration Studies from Oxford University.
* "Cole" is a beloved childhood nickname that many family and friends call me. I began publishing my creative fiction work under that pen-name as a way to honor the deep wisdom and authenticity of my girlhood self who always dreamed of writing and worldmaking through books. I happily answer to both "Cole" and "Nicole".