William Kennedy is a well-known American author. William Kennedy is well-known for his novels “Ironwood,” “The Cotton Club,” and “The Ink Truck,” among others. Before entering the fictional realm of novels, he worked as a journalist. Many of his stories revolve around the fictional Irish-American Phelan family of Albany, New York.
Childhood and Early Life
The full name of William Kennedy is William Joseph Kennedy. He was born in Albany, New York, on January 16, 1928. He is 93 years old right now. Father William Joseph Kennedy and their mother Mary Elizabeth (McDonald) Kennedy are his parents. They were the descendants of Irish immigrants who lived in North Albany in the nineteenth century.
Auther Kennedy grew up in the Irish-Catholic district of the North End, also known as Limerick. As a child, he worked as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Church and hoped to become a Catholic priest one day.
Furthermore, several of Kennedy’s family worked in politics. “Big Jim” Carroll, his great-grandfather, was a ward leader. His father handled the polls for the machine and accompanied him to Democratic Party rallies on occasion. Two of his mother’s siblings worked as political operators as well.
Education
William Kennedy went to Public Education 20 for elementary school. He started interested in print journalism when he was in seventh grade. He started sketching cartoons and even launched his own newspaper. He began writing articles for the Christian Brothers Academy newspaper when he was in high school.
He afterward attended Christian Brothers Academy. Kennedy then departed Albany after high school to attend nearby Siena College in Loudonville, New York. In 1949, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He rose to the position of executive editor of Siena News, the collegiate newspaper. Willaim Kennedy also enrolled in a creative writing program at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras taught by famed novelist Saul Bellow.
William Kennedy’s Body Measurements
There is no information available on William Kennedy’s body measurements. His height, weight, chest-waist-hip, biceps, dress size, shoe size, and other measurements remain unclear. He has naturally light brown hair that has become white with age. Similarly, his eyes are dark brown.
Quick Facts
| Full Name: | William Kennedy |
|---|---|
| Born Date: | 16 Jan 1928 |
| Age: | 95 years |
| Horoscope: | Capricorn |
| Lucky Number: | 10 |
| Lucky Stone: | Topaz |
| Lucky Color: | Brown |
| Best Match for Marriage: | Scorpio, Virgo, Taurus |
| Gender: | Male |
| Profession: | Author, Journalist |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Marital Status: | married |
| Wife | Ana Daisy (Dana) Segarra |
| Eye Color | Dark Brown |
| Hair Color | Brown |
| Birth Place | Albany, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | Irish descendent |
| Education | University of Puerto Rico (creative writing) |
| Father | William Joseph |
| Mother | Mary Elizabeth (McDonald) Kennedy |
| Kids | Three (Dana, Katherine, Brendan) |
| IMDB | William Kennedy IMDB |
| Wiki | William Kennedy Wiki |
William Kennedy’s Net Worth
Moving on, this famous writer has amassed a sizable fortune throughout his work. As of 2022, he has a net worth of $38 million USD.
Relationship Status
William Kennedy has a wife. He met Ana Daisy (Dana) Segarra while working in Puerto Rico. She performed as a dancer, singer, and actress. The couple later married in Puerto Rico in 1957, however, the exact date of their wedding is unknown. Dana, Katherine, and Brendan are the names of their three children. He currently resides in Averill Park, New York, a hamlet approximately 16 miles east of Albany.
Journalism as a Career and Professional Life
Following graduation, Kennedy worked as a sports editor and columnist for the Glens Falls Post Star. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1950 and deployed to the Fourth Division in Europe. But his journalistic abilities did not go unnoticed during his tenure in the Army. Until his discharge in 1952, he worked for the division’s newspaper.
Later, in 1952, he returned to his hometown and landed a job at the Albany Times-Union. He worked for the Union for the next four years until accepting a job with the Puerto Rico World Journal. Unfortunately, the paper ran out of business after nine months, leaving him temporarily unemployed.
He ultimately landed a position at the Miami Herald and resided there briefly before returning to Puerto Rico in 1957. He became the first managing editor of the San Juan Star after working in Puerto Rico for two years.
Writing
After his marriage in Puerto Rico, he began to devote more time to creating fiction. This is when he enrolled in Saul Bellow’s creative writing class. Kennedy’s early attempts at fiction delighted Bellow, who pushed him to continue honing his craft.
For a while, he attempted to compose stories about Puerto Rico. He did, however, struggle to write authoritatively about this place without seeming like a tourist. He quickly discovered his muse, who persuaded him to return to his birthplace Albany. He left journalism two years after starting with the San Juan Star. He did it instead to focus on his creative writing.
Returning to Albany
In 1963, Willaim Kennedy returned to Albany. He was 35 years old and had already ascended as far as he could in the world of print journalism. However, Kennedy’s father’s health was deteriorating, so he accepted a part-time feature writer position at the Albany Times-Union. He did so to pay the expenses while working on his artistic projects.
He first gained attention for a series of pieces he wrote about his hometown, including its history, politics, and colorful characters. These works are the basis for Kennedy’s 1983 collection O Albany!. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1965 for a series of pieces he wrote about Albany’s disadvantaged areas.
Another lucrative arena for his writing abilities was the realm of book reviewing. From 1964 through 1972, he wrote 37 reviews for the National Observer. He also contributed to renowned national journals such as Life, The New Republic, Saturday Review, and the New York Times in the early 1970s. Despite his triumphs, he was certain that his true passion was writing novels.
Novels from the Beginning
When he published his debut novel, The Ink Truck, in 1969, he accomplished his dream. This novel depicts the escapades of Bailey, a newspaper columnist caught up in a strike. Similarly, the novel is based on a true-life labor struggle at the Times-Union.
Many of his insights regarding Irish Catholic life in Albany were woven into the storyline of his debut book. He accomplished this by writing in a caustic literary style. The Ink Truck was praised by critics as a promising first novel, despite its relatively shoddy construction and creative debt to past authors.
Later, he found inspiration in Albany’s past. His subsequent work mixed history, fiction, and black humor. Legs, published in 1975, recounts the account of criminal Jack “Legs” Diamond’s final days. In the year 1931, he was killed in a firefight with his adversaries in an Albany boarding house.
The setting for his next novel, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, released in 1978, was inspired by prohibition-era Albany. However, the environment he selected to investigate was closer to home and did not necessitate as much investigation. It was the Democratic political machine at work. This tale is recounted from the perspective of a journalist, Martin Daugherty, and focuses on an unsuccessful effort to kidnap the son of a powerful political figure.
Major Projects
Ironweed was completed five years after Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game was published. This novel is set in 1938’s Depression-ravaged Albany. It follows the ramblings of Francis Phelan, the father of Billy from Kennedy’s earlier work.
Ironweed was initially rejected by his publisher, Viking Press. They did this because it was not selling. Thirteen additional publishing houses followed Viking’s lead. This spurred his old mentor and friend, Saul Bellow, to step in. He penned a venomous letter to Viking executives pleading with them to publish Ironweed. Saul also promised them that the book would be a commercial and critical success.
The Vikings followed Saul’s counsel and published Ironweed. The novel became a masterwork and got both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for “Fiction”. In two years, the novel sold 100,000 copies. His artistic achievement in writing the novel earned him a MacArthur Foundation grant worth $264,000 over five years. He was still a fledgling novelist working in relative obscurity at the time. He was suddenly a literary celebrity with the financial security he had long coveted as a result of this novel.
Following Ironwood
Even after the triumph of Ironwood, he did not take a break. Instead, he returned to the world of literature almost immediately, accepting an appointment from New York Governor Mario Cuomo to lead the New York State Writers Institute. In 1983, he published O Albany!. It is a compilation of fresh and old essays about his hometown. Later same year, in 1987, he created the screenplay for Ironweed, which was directed by Hector Babenco.
He began to refer to his writings as part of a cycle in which all of the events and characters were interconnected in some way. Quinn’s Book, published in 1988, was set in Civil War-era Albany and incorporated characters from his prior novels. Very Old Bones, released in 1992, expands on the Phelan family’s history.
Achievements from the 1990s
William Kennedy was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1993. It consists of 250 well-known American artists, architects, writers, and composers. Riding the Yellow Trolley Car, his nonfiction anthology, was released the same year. It included essays, diaries, reviews, and journalism during his time as an Albany Times-Union reporter.
Three years later, with his first play, Grand View, he broadened his artistic range. The play had its world premiere at Capital Repertory Company in Albany. The play depicted the battle for control of Albany’s administration between the two major political parties.
He has also co-written two children’s books with his son Brendan. Charlie Malarkey and the Belly Button Machine was released in 1986, while Charlie Malarkey and the Singing Moose was released in 1993.
For the following work in the cycle, he returned to his usual surroundings. The Flaming Corsage was released in 1996. The book is set between the 1880s and 1912. It tells the story of a tragic couple: Edward Daugherty, a great playwright, and his equally obstinate wife, Katrina.
Honors and Awards
Ironweed, a novel by William Kennedy, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1984. For the same work, he later won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Similarly, in 2001, he earned the Tulsa Library Trust’s Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. He later won the Fitzgerald Award for “Achievement in American Literature” in 2007. This prize is given each year in Rockville, Maryland. It is the final resting place of F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife, and their daughter.
In 2011, William Kennedy was honored with a special toast at Trattoria Dopo Teatro, a popular Theater District eatery. Guiseppe Manica, Dana, William Kennedy, and Barbara Ligeti (from left to right). Broadway World is the source.
He has won various honorary degrees in addition to honors. In May 2012, the Chancellor of the State University of New York awarded him the inaugural SUNY Medallion of Distinction. He has since joined the SUNY Distinguished Academy as a board-appointed Distinguished Professor.
Later, from 1974 to 1982, he lectured in creative writing and journalism at the University of Albany, eventually becoming a full professor in 1983. During the 1982-1983 academic year, he also taught writing as a visiting professor at Cornell University.
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