Thomas E. Kennedy has published more than 30 books – 12 novels, 6 story and essay collections, 4 books of literary criticism, 2 books of translation, and 9 anthologies (several co-edited with Walter Cummins).

 His most recent books include the novels of his Copenhagen Quartet being published world-wide by Bloomsbury – four independent novels about the seasons and souls of the Danish capital, each set in a different season and written in a different style:  In the Company of Angels (2010), Falling Sideways (2011), Kerrigan in Copenhagen, A Love Story (2013) and Beneath the Neon Egg (2014).  In 2013, New American Press published his Getting Lucky: New & Selected Stories, 1982-2012; New American Press also published his Last Night My Bed A Boat of Whiskey Going Down –  a novel in essays (2010) and Riding the Dog: A Look Back at America (2008).  He has also published a book about writing – Realism & Other Illusions, Essays on the Craft of Fiction (2001), from Wordcraft of Oregon.

 Kennedy’s stories, essays, and translations from the Danish appear regularly in such venues as the New Yorker on-line, the Independent in London, Boston Review, the Southern Review, Epoch, Ecotone, Esquire Weekly,  New Letters, Glimmer Train, Writer’s Chronicle, the Literary Review, American Poetry Review, Serving House Journal, Poet Lore, and many others – and have won O. Henry and Pushcart Prizes as well as a National Magazine Award.  Kennedy has also won two Eric Hoffer Awards for novels, multiple grants from the Danish Arts Council and other prizes and distinctions. 

His fiction ranges from realism to meta-fiction to surrealism, and his creative nonfiction deals with topics such as riding on a Greyhound bus (Riding the Dog), his stint in the White House in 1963 (“My White House Days”), a cross-country bicycle tour in the U.S. (“Bailing Out in Peoria”), a safari in South Africa (“Watch Out for the Hippos, Mr. Kennedy”), a recent visit to Graterford Maximum Security Prison where the writing group read one of his novels (“Humanists at the Grate”), and many other subjects.  His literary criticism has dealt with authors as wide-ranging as the realist Andre Dubus and the postmodernist, Robert Coover, and his translations currently are primarily of the Danish poets Henrik Nordbrandt and Dan Turèll.

He holds a PhD from the University of Copenhagen, an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a BA (summa cum laude) from Fordham University.  Since 2004, he has taught fiction and creative nonfiction in the low-residency MFA program of Fairleigh Dickinson University and lives in Copenhagen.  

Website: www.CopenhagenQuartet.com and www.thomasekennedy.com

Twitter Username: @thomasekennedy

Publications

• Beneath the Neon Egg , Bloomsbury Publishing (August 5, 2012)
• Kerrigan in Copenhagen , Bloomsbury Publishing (August 10, 2012)
• Falling Sideways , Bloomsbury Publishing (March 1, 2011)
• In the Company of Angels , Bloomsbury Publishing (June 1, 2010)

Awards

• National Magazine Award (Essay)(2008)
• The Eric Hoffer Award (Micro Press Winner), GREENE'S SUMMER(2007)
• The Eric Hoffer Award (First Runner-Up, General Fiction Category), Danish Fall(2007)
• O. Henry Award (Short Story)(2012)
• Pushcart Prize (Short Story)(2012)
• Pushcart Prize (Essay)(2012)

Employment

• Core Faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University, MFA Program (January 2004 - January 2012)

Degrees

• Doctoral Degree in American literature from University of Copenhagen (March 2012)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Poetry