Charles Kim

Charles Kim is a Senior Editorial Agent at Serendipity Literary, where he focuses on moving forward the principles of diversity and inclusion, authentic representation, equity, and narrative change in publishing. He is also the Co-Founder and President of Third State Books, the only general-interest publisher in North America dedicated exclusively to Asian American authors and stories. His Serendipity client list includes many thought leaders and change makers in the Asian American community, influential Gen Z voices in social media and digital communication, clinicians and therapists working to heal BIPOC and intergenerational traumas, activists bringing about change in cannabis and psychedelics, contemporary art curators and critics, writers of adult fiction and YA/children’s literature, and collectives of Black and Brown creators and speakers. Previously, Charles served as Associate Publisher at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he oversaw the publication of forty titles per year and sat on institution-wide committees including the Editorial Board, Revenue Committee, Digital Strategy Committee, Online Courses Steering Committee, and Budget Working Group. He also published a highly successful line of limited editions on artists such as Yoko Ono and Robert Rauschenberg and established a bestselling line of children’s books on iconic artists, such as Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, and René Magritte, but also women artists and artists of color, such as Yayoi Kusama, Sonia Delaunay, Shahzia Sikander, and Jacob Lawrence. Before MoMA, he served as Editor in Chief and Director of Publications at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where he launched the Museum’s first publishing imprint. He also served as Senior Agent at the French Publishers’ Agency, an office of France’s Ministry of Culture representing twenty-five leading French publishers. Charles was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of seven.