About

Shawna Kenney is the author of the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp), editor of the anthology Book Lovers: Sexy Stories from Under the Covers (Seal Press), co-author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher), and co-author of the forthcoming Live at the Safari Club: An Oral History of HarDCore Punk in the Nation’s Capital (Rare Bird Books).

Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, Creative Nonfiction, Vice, The Rumpus, Bust, Narratively, Salon and more, while her short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Kenney’s personal essays appear in numerous anthologies and she has shared her words on college campuses and airwaves around the world. She earned a BA in Communications from American University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

She teaches creative writing for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and as a Pen in the Community Writer in Residence via PEN USA.

 

Kenney’s honesty, humor and sharp writing style make it an entertaining read. — Jennifer Joseph, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Kenney’s tale is lighthearted but fascinating. . . . Her attitude is, overall, strongly woman-positive, and her spunk and enthusiasm leave a clear, fiery impression on her readers. — Bust Magazine

More a twisted coming-of-age story than warmed-over slice of Marquis de Sade, Kenney’s potboiler approaches its prurient subject matter with a refreshing post-feminist Gen-X practicality. — New Times LA

“With Book Lovers, the legendary Shawna Kenney has not just assembled a fantastic, compulsively readable story collection, she has created a whole new genre—Author Porn. Book Lovers is a scintillating anthology, and a must-read for lustful literati of every stripe. Pull the blinds, and crawl between the covers.”
—Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

Shunning major publishers, embracing ‘the other,’ and living to tell the tale. That’s Shawna Kenney in a nutshell. She chronicles the lives behind the costumed characters who wander unauthorized up and down Hollywood Blvd, charging passerby for pictures. She earns an MFA in creative writing. She teaches the next generation. There’s not a whole lot that she doesn’t do. — Will Tupper for The Official Chuck Palahniuk Site

It read like Hunter S. Thompson if he’d had ovaries, and a sober moment or two. — Heather Corrina of Scarlet Letters