• Kim Samek
Author, Emmy-nominated comedy writer, and producer
Kim Samek is the author of the forthcoming debut story collection I AM THE GHOST HERE, which will be published by Dial Press in 2026. Her fiction appears in Catapult, Guernica, Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, Gulf Coast, Electric Literature, swamp pink, North American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Threepenny Review, STORY, and ZYZZYVA. A native of Seattle, she studied creative writing and German Literature at Stanford University. While in college, she worked for Sony Music. Shortly after, she moved to Los Angeles to work in television. She has written and/or produced many shows, with credits including MTV's Catfish, PBS' WordGirl, and Issa Rae's Sweet Life: Los Angeles for HBO Max. Her television writing has been nominated for an Emmy Award and her fiction has been awarded the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.


Photo credit: Jesse Dittmar

I Am the Ghost Here: Stories
Twelve women confront the mounting existential terrors of modernity—climate change, unbridled capitalism and greed, an entertainment industry that will go to surreal lengths to stay relevant—in this debut story collection set in a slightly off-kilter version of reality.

A woman’s limbs disappear into “the cloud” during wildfire-induced power outages. A lonely DoorDasher accidentally becomes the star of someone else’s reality show, forced to resolve her fraught relationship with her immigrant mother for the narrative. Succumbing to a widely denied pandemic, a gymnastics coach must carry her heart around in a Mason jar, using her disability to become an influencer. Two chronically single, chronically ill people become soulmates, only to discover their meeting was algorithmically orchestrated by ad tech. Other dramas unfold as icebergs melt and island-sized trash heaps burn.

Threaded with sharp social commentary, these stories question the engineering of human connection through technology, social media, and reality television. Warm, endlessly strange, and filled with dark yet hopeful humor, I Am the Ghost Here casts familiar crises of contemporary life in a wholly unique light, offering a pathway towards our shared humanity even as reality comes crumbling down.



Early praise:

"I adored this collection of surreal stories, which feel both of-the-moment and timeless. Bizarre, very funny, and emotionally authentic, these stories pulse with pathos and surprising insights into what it feels like to be human...A vital addition to the canon of weird fiction.” - Kate Folk, author of Sky Daddy

“Like a season of Black Mirror but less bleak and more melancholy, each story in this collection offers a door into an inventive new world, strange and familiar at the same time. Every page, every line offers possibility, surprise, humor, or heartbreak...An exciting new voice.” - Charles Yu, winner of the National Book Award and author of Interior Chinatown

“Beguiling and funny and desperately, delicately human...I found these stories as irresistible as a pack of time-traveling mints.” - Ed Park, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Same Bed, Different Dreams

“The pages of I Am the Ghost Here are as electric as a live wire: dangerous in the most thrilling possible way. The world of these stories isn't quite like ours - but is it any more absurd than the one we're in, honestly? You might start a story thinking you're reading about, say, a woman who's turned into scrambled eggs; you'll end it realizing that, all along, you were reading about yourself.” - Vauhini Vara, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of This is Salvaged


Short Stories

"Egg Mother" - Catapult | September 2022


"I Am the Ghost Here" - Guernica | January 2023


"The Garbage Patch" - Ecotone | Issue 33 Fall/Winter 2022


"A Nervous Tic Motion Kind of Peace" - Southern Humanities Review 56.2 | June 2023


"Skinny House" - Electric Literature | October 2023


"Teen Mom" - swamp pink | October 2023


"Doors" - Gulf Coast | Winter/Spring 2024 Volume 36 Issue 1


"Return" - North American Review | Spring 2024 Volume 309 Number 1


"Ex Manic Pixie vs. The Zombies" - Chicago Quarterly Review | 39, Spring 2024


"Trash Heap Hero Likes How It's Going" - The Threepenny Review | Spring 2024


"Easement" - STORY Magazine | Issue 20, Autumn 2024


"Muscle to Muscle, Toe to Toe" - ZYZZYVA | Spring 2025


Television Credits


Companies


Contact


Literary agent: Martha Wydysh at Trident Media Group

Book publicity: Carrie Neill

TV & film rights: Will Watkins at CAA


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