William Kennedy
William Kennedy (center) in 1996
Born	William Joseph Kennedy (1928-01-16)January 16, 1928 (age 98) Albany, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Author journalist historian
Education	Siena College (BA)
Period	1955–present
Genre	Fiction, History, Supernatural
Notable works	Legs,Billy Phelan's Greatest Game,Ironweed
Notable awards	Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1984)
Spouse	Dana Daisy Segarra Kennedy ​ ​ (m. 1957; died 2023)​
Children	3

William Joseph Kennedy (born January 16, 1928) is an American writer andjournalist who won the 1984Pulitzer Prize for his 1983 novelIronweed.

Kennedy's other works includeThe Ink Truck (1969),Legs (1975),Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978),Roscoe (2002) andChangó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (2011). Many of his novels have featured the interactions of members of the fictionalIrish-American Phelan family inAlbany, New York.^[1][2][3]

Kennedy has also published a non-fiction book entitledO Albany!: Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels (1983).

William Joseph Kennedy was born January 16, 1928, inAlbany,New York^[4] to William and Mary Kennedy.^[5] He is an only child. Kennedy's parents were working-class Irish-Americans.^[6] Kennedy was raisedCatholic^[7] and grew up in theNorth Albany neighborhood.^[6] He attendedPublic School 20 andChristian Brothers Academy. Kennedy studied atSiena College inLoudonville, New York, from which he graduated in 1949.^[8][4][9]

Kennedy began pursuing a career in journalism after college by joining thePost Star in Glens Falls as a sports reporter. He was drafted in 1950 and served in the U.S. Army, where he worked for an Army newspaper in Europe.^[10][8] After his discharge, Kennedy joined the AlbanyTimes Union as a reporter. He then relocated toPuerto Rico in 1956 and became managing editor of theSan Juan Star, a new English language newspaper. While living inSan Juan, he befriended the journalist and authorHunter S. Thompson.^[10]

Kennedy, who had been eager to leave Albany, returned to his hometown in 1963.^[4] He worked for theTimes Union as aninvestigative journalist, writing stories exposing activities ofDaniel P. O'Connell and his political cronies in the dominant Democratic Party.^{[citation needed]} He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1965 for a series of articles on ghettos.^[6]

Kennedy published his first novel,The Ink Truck, in 1969. The novel's main character is a columnist who leads a strike at his newspaper in Albany.^[4]

Kennedy lectured in creative writing and journalism from 1974 to 1982 at the University at Albany, becoming a full professor in 1983. He taught writing as a visiting professor atCornell University during the 1982–1983 academic year.^[8]

Kennedy publishedLegs (about Jack (“Legs”) Diamond, a gangster killed in Albany in 1931) in 1975 andBilly Phelan’s Greatest Game (about a fictional Albany hustler) in 1978.^[4] While both novels were well received by critics, they did not sell well.^[9] Kennedy and his family experienced financial difficulties.^[6]

Kennedy's next novel,Ironweed (1983), was rejected by publishers 13 times.^[6] However, authorSaul Bellow urgedViking Press to reconsider. Viking Press published the novel.^[6][9] The novel was commercially successful,^[11] and it won Kennedy a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critics Circle Award.^[6] The novel was adapted intoa 1987 film of the same name for which Kennedy wrote the screenplay.^[12]

Kennedy also published a nonfiction book entitledO Albany!: Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels (1983).^[4]

Kennedy's other novels includeQuinn’s Book (1988),Very Old Bones (1992),The Flaming Corsage (1996),Roscoe (2002), andChangó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes (2011). He has also authored plays and screenplays, and co-authored two children's books with his son, Brendan Kennedy.^[4]

Kennedy's use of Albany as the setting for eight of his novels was described in 2011 by book criticJonathan Yardley as painting "a portrait of a single city perhaps unique in American fiction".^[13] Writer and Saul Bellow biographer James Atlas credits Kennedy with doing for Albany what James Joyce did for Dublin and Saul Bellow did for Chicago.^[14]

He was named a 1983 MacArthur Fellow (more commonly known as receiving their "genius grant").^[15][14] Kennedy received the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novelIronweed. He also won theNational Book Critics Circle Award.^[16]

Kennedy met Dana (born Ana) Daisy Segarra, a Broadway dancer who went by the stage name Dana Sosa, in her native Puerto Rico. They married in 1957 and had three children. In 1963, they moved from Puerto Rico toAverill Park, New York, where she would die on September 29, 2023.^[17][18]

• The Ink Truck. New York:Viking Press, 1969.

• Legs. New York:Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975.
• Billy Phelan's Greatest Game. New York: Viking Press, 1978.
• Ironweed. New York: Viking Press, 1983.
• Quinn's Book. New York: Viking Press, 1988.
• Very Old Bones. New York: Viking Press, 1992.
• The Flaming Corsage. New York: Viking Press, 1996.
• Roscoe. New York: Viking Press, 2002.
• Changó's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes. New York: Viking Adult, 2012.^[19]

• O Albany!: Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels. New York: Viking Press, 1983.
• The Making of Ironweed. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988.
• Riding the Yellow Trolley Car. New York: Viking Press, 1993.

• The Cotton Club. Co-authored withFrancis Ford Coppola. New York:St. Martin's Press, 1986.
• Ironweed.Tri-Star, 1987.

• Grand View. Premiered atCapital Repertory Theatre, Albany, New York, 1996.
• In the System. HumaniTech* Short Play Project Premiere, University at Albany, March 2003.
• The Light of the World. Premiere reading at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, starringAidan Quinn. November 2014.^[20]

• Charlie Malarkey and the Belly Button Machine (co-authored with Brendan Kennedy). New York:Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986.
• Charlie Malarkey and the Singing Moose (co-authored with Brendan Kennedy). New York: Viking Children's Books, 1994.

• Flanagan, Thomas.O Albany!.New York Review of Books. April 25, 2002
• Giamo, Benedict F.The Homeless of Ironweed: Blossoms on the Crag. Iowa City:University of Iowa Press, 1997.
• Gillespie, Michael Patrick.Reading William Kennedy. Syracuse:Syracuse University Press.
• Lynch, Vivian Valvano.Portraits of Artists: Warriors in the Novels of William Kennedy. Bethesda: International Scholars Publications, 1999.
• Mallon, Thomas.William Kennedy's Greatest Game.The Atlantic Monthly. February 2002.
• Seshachari, Neila C.Courtesans, Stars, Wives, & Vixens: The Many Faces of Female Power in Kennedy's Novels, AWP Conference, Albany, NY. April 17, 1999.
• Marowski, Daniel G. and Matur, Roger, editors. "William Kennedy."Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 53, Detroit:Gale Research, 1989, pp. 189–201.
• Michener, Christian.From Then into Now: William Kennedy's Albany Novels.University of Scranton Press, 1998.
• Reilly, Edward C.Twayne's United States Authors Series: William Kennedy. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991.
• Van Dover, J. K.Understanding William Kennedy. Columbia, SC:University of South Carolina Press, 1991.
• Seshachari, Neila C., editor.Conversations with William Kennedy. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1997.

• University at Albany – Famous Faculty
• John William Ward (professor)

• Finding Aid for the Papers of William Kennedy
• Audio recording of William Kennedy reading from unpublished works at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2009
• Write TV Public Television Interview with William KennedyArchived December 6, 2016, at theWayback Machine
• 2011 radio interview at The Bat Segundo Show
• M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and ArchivesArchived February 18, 2013, at theWayback Machine,University at Albany Libraries.
• New York State Writers Institute Biography of Kennedy,University at Albany.
• "Very Old Bones; Ironweed".Bookworm (Interview). Interviewed byMichael Silverblatt.KCRW. October 1992.
• "Roscoe".Bookworm (Interview). Interviewed byMichael Silverblatt. KCRW. April 2002.

• 1928 births
• Living people
• American newspaper journalists
• 20th-century American novelists
• 21st-century American novelists
• American people of Irish descent
• MacArthur Fellows
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Writers from Albany, New York
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners
• Siena University (Loudonville, New York) alumni
• University at Albany, SUNY faculty
• American male novelists
• Journalists from New York (state)
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners
• American Book Award winners
• 20th-century American male writers
• 21st-century American male writers
• Novelists from New York (state)
• 21st-century American non-fiction writers
• American male non-fiction writers
• Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
• National Book Critics Circle Award winners

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