with Flatiron Books in 2017 and was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe best first novel prize by the Mystery Writers of America. Kennedy has worked as a reporter, teacher, and editor, as well as a cookie packer, ice cream scooper, and children’s baseball coach. She also holds a Master’s in Fiction Writing and English literature from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She currently lives in Forest Grove, Oregon with her mother and young son.
[My Book, The Movie: Tornado Weather; The Page 69 Test: Tornado Weather; Writers Read: Deborah E. Kennedy]
Kennedy's new novel is Billie Starr's Book of Sorries.
At Electric Lit the author tagged seven "stories set in Indiana [that] have a special place in my heart and on my bookshelf," including:
Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. FordRead about another entry on the list.
The words “heart-wrenching” and “wondrous” and “powerful” and “richly observed” have all been used to describe this award-winningmemoir of family, Black girlhood and Black joy, racial strife, and self-actualization, and they all apply. All of those words and then some. Ford, a Fort Wayne native, writes of growing up without her father—during her formative years, he was serving time in a local prison—and of working tirelessly to earn her mother’s love. When Ford is sexually assaulted by a boy from her school, she learns the truth behind her father’s imprisonment: he is in jail for rape. Rather than allowing this realization to tear her world apart, Ford makes herself whole through the act of writing. This book is as inspiring and enthralling as it gets.
--Marshal Zeringue
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