I could have included any number of Kennedy’s short stories on this list but instead I am choosing to bend the remit a bit and mention Words: A One-Person Show, her solo comedy performance about language and love that I was lucky enough to see as a student. Kennedy is great onstage—as warm and witty and wise as the show itself—and it was an experience that helped me stay determined to keep working across the dual worlds of (fiction) writing and live performance. Give words the respect they are due and They. Will. Make. You. Shine.
First performed in 2009 and touring to various places across the UK and elsewhere with its final performance in Humboldt University, Berlin. The full text is reprinted in On Writing, Jonathan Cape, 2013
A Personal Anthology 