William Kennedy

William Joseph Kennedy, born on January 16, 1928, in Albany, New York, embarked on his career in journalism, starting as a sports reporter for the Post Star in Glens Falls. His early professional life was interrupted by military service in the U.S. Army, where he contributed to an Army newspaper in Europe during 1950. Following his discharge, Kennedy resumed his journalism career at the Albany Times Union. In 1956, he relocated to Puerto Rico to become the managing editor of the San Juan Star, an English-language newspaper, and during this period, he established a friendship with fellow journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson.

Returning to Albany in 1963, Kennedy joined the Times Union as an investigative journalist. His work during this time included a series of articles exposing the activities of Daniel P. O’Connell and his political associates, which earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1965 for his reporting on ghettos. He released his first novel, “The Ink Truck,” in 1969, featuring a protagonist who leads a newspaper strike in Albany. Kennedy transitioned into academia, lecturing in creative writing and journalism at the University at Albany from 1974 to 1982, achieving a full professorship in 1983. He also held a visiting professorship in writing at Cornell University during the 1982–1983 academic year.

Kennedy gained wider recognition with his Albany Cycle novels, including “Legs” (1975) and “Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game” (1978), both critically acclaimed despite modest sales. His novel “Ironweed,” published in 1983 after numerous rejections and championed by author Saul Bellow, marked a significant turning point, earning him the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award. This success was followed by additional novels in the Albany Cycle, such as “Quinn’s Book” (1988), “Very Old Bones” (1992), and “Roscoe” (2002), further solidifying his reputation for chronicling the city’s unique fabric. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1987 film adaptation of “Ironweed” and co-authored “The Cotton Club” (1986) with Francis Ford Coppola.