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.

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]

In 2007, Kennedy wrote a biography called The First Man-Made Man about Michael Dillon, a British physician and author who in the mid-1940s became the first successful case of female-to-male sex change treatment that included a phalloplasty (the surgical construction of a penis).[6]

In July 2012, Kennedy was named design columnist for the New York Times Magazine.[7] Her column, "Who Made That," detailed the origins of a wide variety of things, such as the cubicle[8] and the home pregnancy test.[9] Kennedy resigned from the column after signing a contract with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to write a book, Inventology.

In 2020, Kennedy's investigation into the history of the first rape kit written for the New York Times, "The Rape Kit's Secret History," received national media attention.[10][11][12] It led to a revival of interest surrounding Marty Goddard's story, including the auction of an early rape kit at Sotheby's.[13]

Teaching

Kennedy was a visiting professor of creative writing at Dartmouth College,[14] and taught fiction and nonfiction writing at Boston College, Johns Hopkins University, and many other conferences and residencies.

Personal life

An ovarian cancer survivor,[15] 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.[16]

Awards

Kennedy was a 2010 Knight Science Journalism fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she 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, ISBN 9780684834818)
  • The Exes (Simon & Schuster, 1998 ISBN 9780684834818)
  • Confessions of a Memory Eater (Leapfrog Press, 2006 ISBN 9780972898485)[17]

Collections
  • Stripping, and other stories (Serpent's Tail, 1994 ISBN 9781852423223)

Nonfiction
  • Platforms: A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 1970s (St. Martin's Press, 1994 ISBN 9780312105259, 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 ISBN 9781939650108)
  • Pagan Kennedy's Living: Handbook for Ageing Hipsters (1997, reprinted by SFWP 2015, ISBN 9781939650504)
  • Black Livingstone: A True Tale of Adventure in the Nineteenth-Century Congo (2002, reprinted by SFWP 2013, ISBN 9780988225268)[18][19] (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 (Bloomsbury, 2007 ISBN 9781596910157)[20]
  • The Dangerous Joy of Dr. Sex and Other True Stories (SFWP, 2008 ISBN 9780977679935)
  • Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016 ISBN 9780544324008)


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". Amazon. 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. Roach, Mary (18 March 2007). "Girls Will Be Boys". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-03-05. Retrieved 25 March 2007.
  7. Chris O'Shea, "Pagan Kennedy Named New York Times Magazine Design Columnist", Mediabistro, July 6, 2012.
  8. Kennedy, Pagan (2012-06-22). "Who Made That Cubicle?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  9. Kennedy, Pagan (2012-07-27). "Who Made That Home Pregnancy Test?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  10. Kennedy, Pagan (2020-06-17). "Opinion | There Are Many Man-Made Objects. The Rape Kit Is Not One of Them". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  11. "What happened when a journalist tracked the origins of the rape evidence kit". Nieman Foundation. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  12. "History Forgot the Woman Who Invented Rape Kits". Jezebel. 17 June 2020. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  13. "The Martha Goddard Rape-Proving Evidence Collection Kit". Sotheby's.
  14. Levy, Alison. "‘Jill-of-all-trades’ Kennedy to join creative writing faculty," The Dartmouth (May 1, 2008).
  15. Kennedy, Pagan (1 June 2014). 'Zine. Santa Fe Writer's Project. ISBN 9781939650160 – via Google Books.
  16. "From The Issue : June-July 2001". www.msmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 2007-08-14. Retrieved 2006-11-17.
  17. Hannah Tucker (2006-06-28). "Confessions of a Memory Eater | Books". EW.com. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  18. Russo, Maria (10 February 2002). "Stranger in a Native Land". New York Times.
  19. "Black Livingstone Author Finds Unexpected Link". National Geographic. 2010-10-28. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  20. Julie Foster (2007-03-18). "Pioneer of sex change surgery". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
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