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Dan Kennedy (author)

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Dan Kennedy, Paris 2009

Dan Kennedy is an American writer, and original developer of The Moth storytelling podcast in New York.[1][2]

Biography

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Kennedy's writing first gained attention at the McSweeney's literary website and quarterly journal. He started performing on stage with New York-based storytelling collective The Moth in 2000, going on to spearhead the development and release of The Moth podcast in 2008, serving as one of the podcast’s hosts from 2008–2020. Wired Magazine celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Moth podcast in a profile[3] outlining its rise from two thousand subscribers to forty-six million downloads per year. In 2019, the podcast was downloaded 71 million times. In 2022, Kennedy returned for one episode (#773), to discuss creating and launching The Moth Podcast.

With a background in New York advertising and the music industry, Kennedy moved into writing and consulting in film and television, selling series pilots to HBO and F/X and working on feature film assignments at Amblin, Paramount, and Amazon Studios.[4] In 2021, he served as a creative consultant on the NBC Peacock Original Series "True Story with Ed and Randall" and previously sat on the judging committees of the Writers Guild of America East "Made in New York" Television Fellowship Program,[5] and the PEN- America Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History.

In 2003 Kennedy published his first *book, Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation, with Random House. A memoir followed in 2008 entitled Rock On: An Office Power Ballad, which the New York Times described as "...a succession of gently mordant vignettes, with hilariously spot-on asides about media image-making".[6][7] He discussed the book, and his time working as a Creative Director for Atlantic Records in New York,[8] with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air".[9] Kennedy's debut novel American Spirit[10] was released in 2013, receiving the coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly,[11] which heralded the book as having, "...far surpassed the creation of character and conjured an entity so alive in its knowledge of impending death that we're captured in a new idea of what it's like to live."[12] Kennedy's work has appeared in GQ Magazine and on the Peabody Award winning Moth Radio Hour, and has been widely anthologized in literary collections in Europe and the United States.[13][14]

Bibliography

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Books

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  • Loser Goes First: My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation (Random House/Crown, 2003)
  • Rock On: An Office Power Ballad (Algonquin, 2008)[15]
  • American Spirit: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Littla a, 2013)[16][17]

Selected anthologies

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  • Embrace the Merciless Joy: The McSweeney's Guide to Rearing Small, Medium, and Large Children (2023) Edited by Chris Monks, Jennifer Traig
  • How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth, by The Moth (2022)
  • The Moth Presents: Occasional Magic. True Stories About Defying the Impossible, edited by Catherine Burns (2019)
  • Keep Scrolling Till You Feel Something: 21 Years of Humor from McSweeney's Internet Tendency (2019) edited by Chris Monks, Sam Riley
  • McSweeney's Issue 50 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern) (2017), edited by Dave Eggers
  • Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor, Editors Dave Eggers, Kevin Shay, Lee Epstein, John Warner, Suzanne Kleid
  • Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, by John Cook, Mac McCaughan, Laura Ballance, Ray Porter
  • Humor Me: An Anthology of Funny Contemporary Writing (Plus Some Great Old Stuff Too), edited by Ian Frazier
  • Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, Edited by Kevin Sampsell
  • The Encyclopedia of Exes, Edited by Meredith Broussard
  • The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir, edited by Jennifer Traig
  • McSweeney's Issue 35 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern), edited by Dave Eggers
  • The McSweeney's Book of Politics and Musicals, by the Editors of McSweeney's
  • The Insomniac Reader: Stories of the Night, Edited by Kevin Sampsell
  • The Best of McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Edited by Chris Monks, John Warner
  • Love Is a Four-Letter Word: True Stories of Breakups, Bad Relationships, and Broken Hearts, Edited by Michael Taeckens
  • Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists, by the Editors of McSweeney's

References

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  1. ^ Amodeo, Gloria Beth (31 May 2013). "Connecticut Parking Lot Blues: PW Talks With Dan Kennedy". Publishers Weekly. No. May 31, 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  2. ^ KIRSCHLING, GREGORY (2003-09-26). "How one goes from loser to rock star to Loser". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
  3. ^ Katz, Miranda. "'The Moth Podcast' Looks Back at a Decade of Stories". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-04-14.
  4. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (11 November 2015). "FX Buys Restaurant Comedy 'Starters' Produced By Ed Helms". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  5. ^ ""The 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History"". PEN America, The Freedom to Write. PEN America. 18 January 2017. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  6. ^ Robert, Sandall (30 March 2008). ""How I Tried to Stop Caring About Music and Learn to Love Corporate Rock"". The Sunday Times of London. No. Sunday, March 30, 2008. Archived from the original on August 8, 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  7. ^ Azzerad, Michael (2 March 2008). "Rock 'n' Droll". The New York Times. No. Sunday, March 02, 2008. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  8. ^ Donahue, Deirdre (February 18, 2008). "Rock On: An Office Power Ballad". USA TODAY Life. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
  9. ^ "Dan Kennedy". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
  10. ^ "American Spirit: A Novel". Publishers Weekly. No. Monday, May 20, 2013. May 20, 2013. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  11. ^ "Fiction Book Review: American Spirit by Dan Kennedy. Little A/New Harvest, $26 (342p) ISBN 978-0-544-03204-0". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 2018-06-18.
  12. ^ "Dan Kennedy: Fishing For A Tale". NPR.org. May 31, 2013. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
  13. ^ "In Deep Guano". WYNC Radio 93.9 FM. The Moth Radio Hour. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  14. ^ Kennedy, Dan (February 25, 2009). ""The Last Record Store"". GQ Magazine. No. Weds, February 25, 2009. Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  15. ^ Schickel, Erika (2008-02-10). "Pants on fire". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
  16. ^ "10 Dazzling Debut Novels to Pick Up Right Now: American Spirit". Oprah.com. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
  17. ^ "Searching High And Low For The 'American Spirit'". NPR.org. June 2, 2013. Retrieved 2017-01-30.
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