bio

kennedy brandt | fact | bio

That's the author and proprietor of this site pictured above. His full name is Kennedy Michael Brandt, he was born on Friday the Thirteenth on what was then the coldest night in Miami history, and it's way too late to do anything about either one of those facts now. His lovely and talented wife, Andrea, who is also one of his best readers, took the picture.

Raised from a wee tot on a steady entertainment diet of Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Blazers, Doctor Who, Space:1999, and Godzilla movies, he's had science fiction lodged in his cranium for as long as he can remember. He remained fixated on it even as many of his school-age friends veered into the cunning temptations of sports, drama nerdery, and band camp. In retrospect, he believes he might have achieved high school nirvana if only he'd found a way to combine all four interests into one. Instead, he pretty much just kept plotting to himself.

He submitted his first novel-length manuscript in 1988 through the agent of a long-time family friend who would later prove to be insane (the agent, not the friend). The manuscript never saw publication, to Kennedy's great relief today, but he's amazed at how far it went.

He continued hammering away to much enjoyment but little success until his wife pushed him to finally get serious and attend Orson Scott Card's Writing Class and Literary Bootcamp in 2006. There he met fellow writers Aliette de Bodard, Jamie Ford, Danielle Friedman, Adam Holwerda, Jose Mojica, Pat Esden, and Margit Schmitt.

Following the inspiration of OSC's Bootcamp, Kennedy committed to attending at least one major workshop per year. After Bootcamp, it was ReaderCon 18, where he met and began networking with Elizabeth Hand and Kay Kenyon. He next flew to Utah (and boy, were his arms tired!) for David Wolverton/David Farland's novel-writing course, where he again worked with Jose Mojica, met Paul Comstock, Rachel Yan, and Meg Stout and workshopped one novel from a multi-book series he's developing. Most recently, he also attended Robert McKee's STORY Seminar.

His works in progress include a handful of short stories, several books in his series, and a number of unrelated, standalone novels, including a (slightly) fictionalized version of his true-life Africa misadventure.

He lives for writing, music, nice drives with the top down, and coming home to his wife, dog, and two cats in the house that his grandfather built in a nice part of San Jose, California. He's so lucky it's stupid.

Oh, and he's half-nekkid in the photo above because he had just climbed out of a small mountain lake (more like a pond that got carried away) in the craggy high country to the west of Mount Shasta, California, and was drying off by sunning himself on a towel on a rock. Like a lizard.

He thanks you for reading.

Who is that guy? And why is he half-naked?