ABOUT THE WRITER

Shawna Kenney is the author of Imposters (Mark Batty Publisher, 2008) and the memoir, I Was a Teenage Dominatrix (Last Gasp), which won a Firecracker Alternative Book award in 2000. A UK version of IWATD was printed by Transworld Publishing (Random House Group) in 2002, and an Italian translation was published in 2005. Film rights to the book have also been optioned.

Kenney has published hundreds of nonfiction articles, features, essays and reviews. Her work has appeared in The National Writers Union Journal American Writer, Juxtapoz Magazine, Transworld Skateboarding, Alternative Press, the LA Weekly, While You Were Sleeping, Heckler, Herbivore, the Florida Review, Slap and Swindle, among others. She penned the "punk LA" chapter of the Underground Guide to Los Angeles (Manic D Press), appears in Etiquette for Outlaws (HarperCollins), Let Fury Have the Hour: The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer (Avalon), and Putting Your Passion Into Print (Workman). Her essays appear in anthologies, Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache (Alyson Books), Without a Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (Seal Press), and My First Time: A Collection of First Punk Show Stories (AK Press).

Kenney's life in letters began in the DC area in the late 80s with her self-published music fanzine, No Scene ‘Zine, which she produced while booking weekly all-ages punk shows. Several of her events were fundraisers for The Washington Literacy Council, where she served as both Fundraising Chairperson and an adult literacy tutor. She moved to the west coast in 1995 after graduating from the American University in Washington, DC with a B.A. in Film. The author has since performed and featured on panels at Cal-State Fullerton, Cal-State Long Beach, UCLA, Sarah Lawrence College, Goucher College, the LA Times Festival of Books, the West Hollywood Book Fair, the Hollywood Public Library, Los Angeles Ladyfest, NC Ladyfest, and the D.I.Y. Convention, among others. Kenney has hosted numerous literary events, including the Unhappy Hour, Lydia Lunch’s popular monthly reading series at the Parlour Club in West Hollywood, which earned several James Irvine Foundation Poets & Writers grants.

Kenney received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Shawna Kenney is represented by Dunham Literary. For more information contact Jennie Dunham: 156 5th Avenue, Suite 625, NY, NY 10010