Dan Kennedy (author)

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{{Cite magazine |last=Katz |first=Miranda |title='The Moth Podcast' Looks Back at a Decade of Stories |url=https://www.wired.com/story/moth-podcast-turns-10/ |access-date=2024-04-14 |magazine=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028}} 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 [https://player.themoth.org/#/?actionType=ADD_AND_PLAY&storyId=30833 episode (#773)], to discuss the creation and launch of 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.{{cite web|last1=Andreeva|first1=Nellie|title=FX Buys Restaurant Comedy 'Starters' Produced By Ed Helms|url=https://deadline.com/2015/11/fx-comedy-ed-helms-starters-1201617947/|website=Deadline Hollywood|date=11 November 2015 |access-date=25 January 2017}} 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 "Made in New York" Television Fellowship Program,{{cite web |date=18 January 2017 |title="The 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History" |url=http://pen.org/2017-penjean-stein-grant-literary-oral-history/ |access-date=27 January 2017 |website=PEN America, The Freedom to Write |publisher=PEN America}} the PEN- America Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History, and served on the readers panel of the 2025 Writers Guild of America New York Screenwriting Fellowship.

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".{{cite news|last1=Robert|first1=Sandall|title="How I Tried to Stop Caring About Music and Learn to Love Corporate Rock"|url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/article83345.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160808223928/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/article83345.ece|archive-date=August 8, 2016|access-date=25 January 2017|work=The Sunday Times of London|issue=Sunday, March 30, 2008|date=30 March 2008}}{{cite news|last1=Azzerad|first1=Michael|title=Rock 'n' Droll|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Azerrad-t.html|access-date=25 January 2017|work=The New York Times|date=2 March 2008 |issue=Sunday, March 02, 2008}} He discussed the book, and his time working as a Creative Director for Atlantic Records in New York,{{Cite news|url=http://books.usatoday.com/book/-dan-kennedy-rock-on-an-office-power-ballad/r107871|title=Rock On: An Office Power Ballad|last=Donahue|first=Deirdre|date=February 18, 2008|newspaper=USA TODAY Life|access-date=2017-01-30}} with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air".{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88182360|title=Dan Kennedy|website=NPR.org|language=en|access-date=2018-06-18}} Kennedy's debut novel American Spirit{{cite news|url=http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-544-03204-0|title=American Spirit: A Novel|date=May 20, 2013|work=Publishers Weekly|issue=Monday, May 20, 2013|access-date=25 January 2017}} was released in 2013, receiving the coveted starred review from Publishers Weekly,{{Cite news|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-544-03204-0|title=Fiction Book Review: American Spirit by Dan Kennedy. Little A/New Harvest, $26 (342p) ISBN 978-0-544-03204-0|work=PublishersWeekly.com|access-date=2018-06-18|language=en}} 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."{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/187052671/dan-kennedy|title=Dan Kennedy: Fishing For A Tale|date=May 31, 2013|website=NPR.org|access-date=2017-01-30}} 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-moth-radio-hour-snakes-electric-shock-and-afghanistan|title=In Deep Guano|website=WYNC Radio 93.9 FM|publisher=The Moth Radio Hour|access-date=27 January 2017|archive-date=15 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150415000749/http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-moth-radio-hour-snakes-electric-shock-and-afghanistan/|url-status=dead}}{{cite news|last1=Kennedy|first1=Dan|title="The Last Record Store"|url=https://www.gq.com/story/the-last-record-store|access-date=25 January 2017|work=GQ Magazine|issue=Weds, February 25, 2009|date=February 25, 2009}}

• 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){{Cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-feb-10-bk-schickel10-story.html|title=Pants on fire|last=Schickel|first=Erika|date=2008-02-10|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|issn=0458-3035|access-date=2017-01-30}}
• American Spirit: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt/Littla a, 2013){{Cite news|url=http://www.oprah.com/book/American-Spirit?editors_pick_id=43597|title=10 Dazzling Debut Novels to Pick Up Right Now: American Spirit|newspaper=Oprah.com|language=en-us|access-date=2017-01-30}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/2013/06/02/188022949/searching-high-and-low-for-the-american-spirit|title=Searching High And Low For The 'American Spirit'|date=June 2, 2013|website=NPR.org|access-date=2017-01-30}}

• 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

{{reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.npr.org/books/authors/138249596/dan-kennedy Dan Kennedy interview on NPR's Fresh Air]
• [https://www.npr.org/2013/06/02/188022949/searching-high-and-low-for-the-american-spirit] Dan Kennedy interview on NPR's Weekend Edition
• [https://www.npr.org/2013/05/31/187052671/dan-kennedy] Dan Kennedy on NPR's Ask Me Another
• [http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-christopher-guest-dan-kennedy Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Christopher Guest, Vampire Weekend, Dan Kennedy.]
• [https://themoth.org/storytellers/dan-kennedy Archived work with The Moth]
• [https://www.mcsweeneys.net/authors/dan-kennedy Archived work with McSweeney's]

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Category:American podcasters

Category:American humorists

Category:American male screenwriters

Category:Living people

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)