About Me

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 new oral history Live at the Safari Club: A History of HarDCore Punk in the Nation’s Capital 1988-1998 (Rare Bird Books).
Kenney is a Contributing Editor with Narratively and her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy, Creative Nonfiction, Vice, The Rumpus, Bust, Salon and more.

Raised in the Washington, DC area on a steady diet of Fugazi, I’ve always been a radical grrrl living in a capitalist world, digging for story. Tell me yours.

She earned a BA in Communications from American University in Washington, DC 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.

Select Reviews:

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, The Official Chuck Palahniuk Site

It read like Hunter S. Thompson if he’d had ovaries, and a sober moment or two.

Heather Corrina, Scarlet Letters

Select Reviews:

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, The Official Chuck Palahniuk Site

It read like Hunter S. Thompson if he’d had ovaries, and a sober moment or two.

Heather Corrina, Scarlet Letters