Kenny Fries

Kenny Fries (born September 22, 1960) is an American memoirist and poet.[1] He is the author of The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory (2007), Body, Remember: A Memoir (1997), and editor of Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (1997). He received a 2009 Creative Capital grant in Innovative Literature, the 2007 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Gregory Kolovakos Award, a Creative Arts Fellowship from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment, and was a Fulbright Scholar to Japan.

He lives in Germany and teaches in the low residency MFA Creative Writing Program at Goddard College.[2]

Early life and education

Fries was born in Brooklyn, New York.[3] He graduated with an MFA from Columbia University's School for the Arts.[3]

Fries graduated in 1977 from high school and went on to pursue a degree in English and American Literature, at Brandeis University. He received a master's degree in Playwriting at Columbia University.

Career

Kenny Fries officially started writing in 1988, after he had begun attending Millay Colony for the Arts. The majority of Fries' books and poems were written due to his experiences as a disabled, gay, Jewish man. Some of the writings that Fries has written include: Body, Remember: A Memoir (2003), Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory (2007), Anesthesia: Poems by Kenny Fries (1996), Desert Walking: Poems (2000), The Healing Notebooks (1990) and Night After Night: Poems (1984). Some of the scholarly writings written by Fries include: "Songs of Whitman" (2003), "Comedy is Not a Crutch" (2001), and "Where Ecstasy Might Reside" (1995).

Honors and awards

Kenny Fries received the 2007 Outstanding Book Award, from the Gustavus Myers Center for the study of Bigotry and Human Rights. He was a Creative Arts Fellow of the Japan-US Friendship commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as being a Fulbright scholar to Japan. In 2009, Fries received residency in the artists' community in Yaddo. In 2010 he received Ledig House International writers residency. Fries has also collaborated with composers Kumiko Takahashi and Yuka Takechi, and singer Mika Kimula on their new music work In the Gardens of Japan, which has been performed in Tokyo, Yokohama, and New York City. Fries has also received a grant in Innovative Literature from the Creative Capitol Foundation, to complete one of his books.

Works

References

  1. ↑ Klein, Jeff. "The Starting Line: What Is Disability?: May 16, 2008", The New York Times, 2008-05-16. Retrieved on 2009-05-23.]
  2. ↑ http://www.lambdaliterary.org/interviews/07/29/kenny-fries-on-how-being-disabled-influences-his-work-gay-pride-and-writing-about-identity/
  3. 1 2 Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath (2003). Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights, Greenwood Publishing Group.

External links

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