Pagan Kennedy

Pagan Kennedy (born c. 1963)[1] is an American columnist and author, and pioneer of the 1990s zine movement.[2]

Pagan Kennedy
BornPamela Kennedy
OccupationAuthor, columnist
NationalityAmerican
Alma materWesleyan University
Johns Hopkins University
PartnerKevin Bruyneel
Website
pagankennedy.net

She has written ten books in a variety of genres,[3] was a regular contributor to the Boston Globe, and has published articles in dozens of magazines and newspapers.[4][5] In 2012–13, she was a New York Times Magazine columnist.

Biography

Early life and education

Born Pamela Kennedy around 1963, she grew up in suburban Washington, D.C. She graduated from Wesleyan University in 1984, and later spent a year in the Masters of Fine Arts program at Johns Hopkins University.

Career

Kennedy's autobiographical zine Pagan's Head detailed her life during her twenties.[1]

Kennedy wrote a biography called The First Man-Made Man about Michael Dillon who in the 1940s was the first successful case of female-to-male sex change treatment; he established himself as a medical student. It describes how he later fell in love with a male-to-female transsexual, Roberta Cowell, who was at the time the only other transsexual in Britain.

In July 2012, Kennedy was named design columnist for the New York Times Magazine.[6] Her column, "Who Made That," detailed the origins of everything from the cubicle[7] to the home pregnancy test.[8] Kennedy resigned from the column after signing a contract with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to write a book, Inventology.

Teaching

Kennedy was a visiting professor of creative writing at Dartmouth College,[9] and taught fiction and nonfiction writing at Boston College, Johns Hopkins University, and many other conferences and residencies.

Personal life

An ovarian cancer survivor,[10] Kennedy currently lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with her partner, Kevin Bruyneel. She previously lived with filmmaker Liz Canner, in a relationship she has described as similar to a Boston marriage.[11]

Awards

Kennedy's accomplishments have been recognized many times during her career; she was a 2010 Knight Science Journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was named the 2010/2011 Creative Nonfiction grant winner by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She has also been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction, a Sonora Review fiction prize, and a Smithsonian Fellowship for science writing.

Bibliography

Novels
  • Spinsters (1995) (Barnes & Noble Discover Award winner, shortlisted for 1996 Orange Prize)
  • The Exes (1998)
  • Confessions of a Memory Eater (2006)[12]

Collections
  • Stripping (1994)

Nonfiction
  • Platforms: A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 1970s (1994, reprinted by SFWP 2015)
  • Zine: How I Spent Six Years of My Life in the Underground and Finally...Found Myself...I Think (St. Martin's Press, 1995; reprinted by SFWP 2014)
  • Pagan Kennedy's Living: Handbook for Ageing Hipsters (1997, reprinted by SFWP 2015)
  • Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo (2002, reprinted by SFWP 2013)[13][14] (New York Times Notable list and Massachusetts Book Award honors)
  • The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth-Century Medical Revolution (2007)[15]
  • The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories (SFWP, 2008)
  • Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World (2016)

Anthologies
  • The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eighth Annual Collection (1995)
  • The Best Creative Nonfiction Volume 2 (2008)

Short stories
  • Elvis's Bathroom (1989)

References
  1. MacLaughlin, Nina (2006-06-27). "The pornography of pharmacology". The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  2. Harvey Blume (2009-01-04). "Wired 4.01: Zine Queen". Wired. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  3. "Pagan Kennedy: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle". Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  4. "Pagan Kennedy (Author of The Exes)". Goodreads.com. 2011-02-26. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  5. "Pagan Kennedy in conversation with Noel King". Jacketmagazine.com. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  6. Chris O'Shea, "Pagan Kennedy Named New York Times Magazine Design Columnist", Mediabistro, July 6, 2012.
  7. Kennedy, Pagan (2012-06-22). "Who Made That Cubicle?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  8. Kennedy, Pagan (2012-07-27). "Who Made That Home Pregnancy Test?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  9. Levy, Alison. "‘Jill-of-all-trades’ Kennedy to join creative writing faculty," The Dartmouth (May 1, 2008).
  10. Kennedy, Pagan (1 June 2014). 'Zine. Santa Fe Writer's Project. ISBN 9781939650160 – via Google Books.
  11. "From The Issue : June-July 2001". www.msmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2007-08-14. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
  12. Hannah Tucker (2006-06-28). "Confessions of a Memory Eater | Books". EW.com. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  13. Russo, Maria (10 February 2002). "Stranger in a Native Land". New York Times.
  14. "Black Livingstone Author Finds Unexpected Link". National Geographic. 2010-10-28. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  15. Julie Foster (2007-03-18). "Pioneer of sex change surgery". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
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