Shawna Kenney

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C. Batts Fly Forever

October 28, 2013, by shawnajean 5 comments
carlos tony shawna

Carlos Batts (L), me, Tony Acosta

 

Ever meet someone you know you’re supposed to meet? Someone who feels like you knew them in another life, in a parallel universe somewhere? That’s how it was when I met Carlos. I’d been in LA a couple of years, a DC transplant, when friend/editor Roger Gastman asked me if his friend Carlos, who was moving to town from Baltimore, could stay with me and my then-boyfriend for a few days until he found an apartment.

 

We’d both been contributing to While You Were Sleeping—Roger’s graffiti mag—and, knowing he was coming from Baltimore, I figured we’d have other friends in common, so I agreed to let him stay. Carlos showed up, dressed in black, shoulder-length dreads pulled back in a ponytail, with a bag of clothes and a bunch of camera equipment. He was hyper, friendly and funny as shit. He and Rich bonded over metal and hardcore; he and I worked on many magazine pieces together, and later he shot my author photos for my first book. He’d always laugh about the story of how we met, and we fake-bickered about how long he stayed on my couch.

 

I don’t know if it was an east coast familiarity or similar dark-humored sensibility, but we clicked. He’d email me and ask me to rewrite his bio. I’d call him for last-minute photos. I hate having my photo taken, but with Carlos, I was not as stiff and nervous as I tend to be in front of cameras.

IWATD UK cover

I got to shoot the new Dwarves record!

 

I just shot this hot Black woman in a confederate flag bikini, too sizes too small!

 

I’m gonna shoot Justine Bateman in knitted lingerie.

 

I wanna shoot this chick with white trash tattoos in a Mexican wrestling mask and a straight jacket.

 

I get to cover the BET awards!

 

Carlos was always excited to share his work. He was bored with shooting for mainstream mags. He wanted his work to bust clichés and blow minds. “I saw Richard Kearns’s book and Eric Kroll’s book at the Maryland Institute College of Art bookstore in 1995, and I was motivated to out-cool their imagery,” he told me. “It was never about fucking the model… I was competitive erotically, but not into the models—until I saw dynamite: my wife.”

 

When he met Lillian, his aura grew even bigger. They created a life together—he was her lens; she was his muse. They blessed our wedding with their presence and we were happy to bless theirs a year later. I had the pleasure of interviewing both of them in August about their opus, Fat Girl—a beautiful book, 12 years in the making. Lillian also did me the honor of shooting the author photo for my latest book. We are all forever entwined through our creations and community—and now further, through this loss. We are here in this little piece of time and space together. He lived. We loved… love—present tense.

 

Joyce Carol Oates: On Writing

May 7, 2013, by shawnajean No comments yet

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates read from her new novel The Accursed last night at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. She spoke quite a bit before and after the actual reading, first on domestic realism and privilege in early American novels, then on her writing process. Oates commented that most of the early “great American” male novelists (Melville, Hawthorne, etc.) barely mention women, that their stories don’t reveal much about the way people actually lived in their time, yet the much-denigrated “women’s fiction” almost act as historical documents, illustrating what it was like to live, give birth, and die during the 18th century. She noted that even Shakespeare was a great dramatist—that his stories were all about the action.

She went on to share that she’s been working on her latest book—one of historical fiction—since 1983. “There are many ways to work on your novel,” she said. “It’s so nice every day to have something to work on, whether it’s researching, editing small parts of your story, reworking your outline—it’s all part of working on your novel.” She said she’d been saving newspaper clippings and library research and tucking it away for years for this project. I just had to share this with other writers who might be heartened by the thought. I urge my students to “go where writers go,” meaning if you want to be a writer, it helps to know what other writers are doing and to go to literary events and get involved when you can… not just because we all need the support (even National Book Award winners, I’m  guessing?) and for networking purposes, but for moments like this, when another writer chooses to get out of her head and into the world to share what she’s been thinking, so that we can do the same.

 

 

Death in the Time of Facebook

April 30, 2013, by shawnajean 2 comments

AJ was in the first creative writing class I taught as a TA in North Carolina. It was comprised of 10 students—8 young men and two women. Some of the guys wore black, listened to punk and metal, and played a lot of video games. I thought we’d get along famously, but these few formed a front, seething with sarcasm. AJ was not a part of the self-created crew. He was generally quiet, but piped up when he had to. He looked like a young Robert DeNiro and seemed to have an old-soul sensibility beyond his 19 yrs. I found out he played banjo, smoked cigars, and was married. He also proved to be the best writer in the bunch. I gave them a literary journalism assignment, asking each student to put themselves in a “fish-out-of-water” situation and write about it. I warned them not to get hurt or arrested and joked that they were “not allowed to go to Iraq.” One straight student danced the night away at a gay bar, one girl went to church for the first time ever. AJ decided to be homeless for the weekend. Despite his wife’s worries, he got dropped off with a backpack and a grape soda in the Wal-Mart parking lot then walked and hitchhiked around town for 38 hours. After a cold night sleeping under a bridge, bumming cigarettes and desperately searching for water, he retreated home—but with a well-written story full of the humor I’d come to expect of his work.

Once he saw me out at a punk show on a Friday night and emailed me the next morning to ask, “what were you doing on stage with the band at the House of Blues last night? If it wasn’t you, it must have been your twin sister, who must be on tour with them.” I had a good laugh and wrote back, explaining the band members were old friends of mine from New York, and asked why he was absent from class that day, to which he replied, “touché.”

A bit later he wrote to tell me he’d attempted hiking the Appalachian Trail, but broke his foot and came home after 100 miles. I admired him for trying and told him so. I think he got divorced shortly after that. I moved back to California after grad school. We became Facebook friends. I watched from afar as he lost weight, grew up, moved around and made friends. He’d write me to ask for publishing advice from time to time. He inquired about my rental property in NC in July, but decided he couldn’t afford it at the time.

Today when I looked at his Facebook page, I found a stream of “I miss yous” and “I can’t believe this world has lost yous,” one “I wish heaven had a phone so I could hear your voice one more time” one post beginning: “Also, jerkface jerk-and-a-half…”  and one declaring: “AJ, you fucking fuck. You missed everything.” Apparently many people continue to interface with the dead in this way instead of switching to a “memorial page.”  Facebook boasts one billion users but the Huffington Post says it “has become the world’s largest site of memorials for the dead,” with approximately 30 million users whose online profiles outlive them.

Last October, AJ announced he was back from rehab: “I am home now, phone is back on, and things are looking a lot brighter. Feel free to call if you want to be brought up to speed.” He posted pictures of pumpkins and scones shortly after, announced a relationship in November, took goofy pics with his girl and a child and a dog—all in Christmas sweaters—in early December, then posted a photo of them together as his profile pic on Dec. 21st. An online obituary states this as his date of death. Age 26. On December 28th, his girlfriend posted three of his poems—one called “Chirp:”
I am a small bird.
My life is short.
I sing beautiful songs
all day
and make myself
invisible
when the weather is good.
And each year I mate,
build a nest;
nurture.
Then we fly away.
And my life is short.

-AJ Murray

 

I woke this morning after dreaming my father was still alive and that I just had not spoken to him in awhile—as was typical in our real lives—and that my sister and I were discussing his health with one another, which was also the usual. Then I remembered that he has been dead for two years, and my sister no longer speaks to me, and I wanted to crawl back into my dream.

AJ’s parents wrote back to my inquiry, telling me they lost him in a car wreck. I see that they held a celebration of his life in a beautiful park this past weekend. I spoke with his mother by phone to share my memories of him as a sweet, adventurous kid. She said he had talked about visiting me in California. She’s made a book of his poems and recipes, which she offered to send me. She shared that they missed him, that he’d had some troubles, and that maybe he was happy now.

 

I am not sure what made me check his Facebook page today. I must have been missing him.

 

 

 

 

News

April 7, 2013, by shawnajean No comments yet

3ebe08ccd3806de54f3f80284e0f70ae76edd291-thumbAnnouncement number one: I Was a Teenage Dominatrix takes its latest incarnation as an audiobook, now available via audible.com, thanks to producer/editor Susie Bright. Susie was one of the first to give me a blurb for my book when it was published in print years ago and I can’t tell you what it means to have such a brilliant pioneer champion my little book. It’s Susie-fucking-Bright, people!

Newsbit number two is that I will be doing a rare reading of my fiction (a short story titled “Possessed,” which ran in Gargoyle magazine last year and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize). I’m reading an excerpt as part of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Publication Party at the Skirball Cultural Center on June 6th and I feel so fortunate to be in this line-up of colleagues! Details here. Come see me. It’s free and I’ll have books on hand.

The Next Big Thing

March 26, 2013, by shawnajean No comments yet

The Next Big Thing

My friend and fellow author Jillian Lauren tagged me in The Next Big Thing meme, where you get to talk about what you’re working on, then pass it on to a few other writers-with-blogs.

It’s perfect timing, because I’m lucky enough (or insane enough) to be working on two books at the moment. One is Live at the Safari Club, an oral history of a punk club in Washington, DC, which is near print-time after my husband/co-author and I have conducted more than two years of interviews. (Yes, we worked on a book together and did not get divorced. Amazing!)

I also just signed a contract with Seal Press to edit an anthology entitled Book Lovers (subtitle to be determined). I’ve asked some of my favorite writers to contribute and there is an open Call for Submissions available here. This is the upcoming project I’ll focus on here.

booksWhere did the idea come from for the book? Laura Mazer (my editor at Seal Press) and I concocted this amalgamation together after lamenting the poor literary quality of certain—ahem—allegedly sexy bestsellers.

What genre does your book fall under? Literature, erotica, fiction, nonfiction, anthology, etc. Can’t I have it all?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie 
rendition?

I don’t know all of the characters yet, since it’s still in-the-works, but I want Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone or Fairuza Balk to play me.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Book Lovers is a collection of sexy stories—real and imagined—with a bookish bent.

When will this book be published?

Spring, 2014.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Since it’s an anthology, it’s still being written, but there’s a spicy introductory essay simmering in my head.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I want the writing to be as quality as the Best American Essays anthologies and sexy as a trashy vampire paperback.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? Crappy writing is a huge turn off. Life is too short for that. I read for story, voice, style and substance. Acknowledging that nerds-now-rule-the-world and, as the bumpersticker says, reading is sexy, I figured someone should curate a collection of well-crafted, word-related erotica. Why not me? I’m bringing sexy books back.

I’m tagging the writers below. The baton goes to YOU, scribes!

Adrienne Marie Vrettos – dear friend, accomplished author of at least 4 young adult novels, busy mamacita

David Henry Sterry – fellow member of the sex worker literati and professional writer-editor matchmaker through his work as one half of The Book Doctors.

Shira Tarrant – expert on masculinity issues, gender politics and pop culture who knows how to put the FUN in feminism

Laura Barcella – freelance writer extraordinaire and my esteemed editor of Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop

Slash Coleman — a cool-ass writer I met while editing another anthology, author of the forthcoming Bohemian Love Diaries, and fellow member of the Leo Nation

 

Message to my teenage self

March 14, 2013, by shawnajean 2 comments

I asked my students to write an essay-as-message to their teenage selves, inspired by this blog post by Jillian Lauren. Serendipitously, their assignment happened the same weekend I was swept away to Washington, DC, for an exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art displaying some punk rock flyers I’d made and saved from my own teenage years. Henry Rollins, the enthusiastic DJ/host, did a good job of reviewing the whole weekend here in the LA Weekly and I interviewed curator Roger Gastman for The Rumpus. I was a small part of the whole thing, but it meant a lot to me. My teens were angst-filled, but maybe no more than anyone else’s…

ignition flyer framed

flyer by Shawna Kenney

I left home at 17, moved to the big city (DC) from my small Maryland town, fought a lot with my parents, fell into helpless hopeless first love, struggled hard financially while longing for higher education, and booked punk shows with my best friend at a local club for fun. These flyers symbolize the bright spots swirling in all that mess of memory. Nothing gave me as much joy as sitting down with a Sharpie, some glue, scissors, tape and paper, ready to tell the world about an upcoming show. The movement of the marker, cutting of the paper, internal tickle of laughter in my throat… there was no reward greater than these moments of creation themselves. Writing is the same. It’s all an act of faith. I’d tell my teenage self this: Keep going. Keep creating. Stay alive.

corcoran hall

hall of flyers, Corcoran Gallery

 

corcroan text

didactic text, Cocoran Gallery

shawna and ian corcoran

Shawna and Ian MacKaye, Corcoran Gallery

 

 

Pump Me Up: DC Subculture of the 1980s

January 10, 2013, by shawnajean No comments yet

Some of my 80s-era punk flyers are on loan to this upcoming exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. After stints of homelessness, bad boyfriends, psycho roommates, college and years of transience, it’s interesting to step back and see what survives. Records bands have given me, set lists from my first shows, flyers my friends and I handmade together–these things I’ll never sell. I don’t mind sharing them in this way, though. It’s comforting to think anyone else still cares about the same things. It gives me hope for the book I’m working on now: Live at the Safari Club (an oral history of a venue which begins in 80s-era Washington, DC). It’s an honor and a joy.

Image

Pushcart Prize nomination

November 19, 2012, by shawnajean No comments yet

I was informed this morning that my short story, “Possession,” which appeared in Gargoyle Magazine earlier this year, was nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize. Crazy, because it’s fiction and I don’t even often admit that I “do fiction,” so this is double-crazy/exciting to me. I am honored to be with other Gargoyle nominees Mary Kay Zuravleff, Nic Small, Wayne Karlin, Amanda J. Bradley, and Daniel M. Shapiro. I guess the moral of this story (the nomination, not my story) is to do things you’re afraid of!

Paradise City

October 22, 2012, by shawnajean No comments yet

Monday night I found myself at the Viper Room, watching an old friend play lap steel guitar in Duff McKagan’s band. At the end of the night, Sebastian Bach jumped on stage to join them for a song. I’m not a hair metal fan but McKagan’s reading from his memoir and the crowd’s enthusiasm in the heat of the moment gave me goosebumps. Around midnight my husband and I were waiting forever for the bus to come but an old friend happened to be going our way and drove us home. Tuesday I had 3 writing-related meetings on the west side. Wednesday during the day I accompanied a friend to her interview on Playboy radio, dropping off books for my own future appearance there. Later that night my husband and I were invited to dinner at a donor’s table for an Optimist’s Club fundraiser, held at the swanky Biltmore Hotel. Thursday I walked over to Skylight Books to catch author Michelle Tea read with fellow Sister Spit crew. Friday I did yoga outside in Runyon Canyon and biked to lunch with a friend in Los Feliz. Saturday we were supposed to go to a party but my husband was home sick all day and I played nurse. Sunday we went to an MMA fight a friend promoted in downtown LA. The cornucopia of offerings in this city never ceases to amaze me. I want it all. I love Los Angeles! And now I have the husband’s cold. This week I am forced rest.

Five Things I Learned From My Agent

October 15, 2012, by shawnajean 1 comment

Books I’ve written, edited or contributed to.

I’ve had film agents, lit agents and publicists, and sometimes I even represent myself. I have books on major publishing houses and cool indies. I’ve run my own small press. At the beginning of my writing career, I almost signed my life away to a slimy manager but avoided that mistake thanks to a great lawyer. Here are my 2 cents for up-and-coming authors.

1-Don’t use superlatives in your book proposal! The book idea and writing should sell itself—no need to add unnecessary adjectives or claims you can’t back up with facts.

2-Agents know the market better than you do. They live and breathe it because it’s their job to do so. If your agent makes a suggestion for improvement or tells you what’s selling—or not—it’s a good idea to tamp down the ego and listen.

3-Foreign rights can be profitable—and tricky. There are tax forms, different market schedules and foreign agents to consider. Although I did my own first American book deal by myself, my agent later sold my foreign rights—something best not to DIY.

4-Don’t come to them in half measures. I’ve had a lot of wacky ideas along the way and in my excitement I have sent them out before they were fully formed. Flesh out that book proposal and make it the best it can be before showing it to anyone, especially your agent.

5-Agents make mistakes, agents make decisions based on what they know and agents are human. One of my agents passed on representing two of my friends who went on to become New York Times bestselling authors. One of those friends broke up with her first agent—who was not a good fit—and found someone else who loved (and sold) her work. Trust your gut. Move on when necessary. But check that ego first.

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