Being Marginalized Is a Blessing: An Interview with Author Dan Kennedy

Popshifter: (laughs) So what are you working on now, book-wise or other projects?

Dan Kennedy: I just finished hanging out in Central America with this guy who was institutionalized twice by the time he was sixteen. He’s from New Jersey and he made his own submarine and routinely goes 2,000 feet under the ocean off the coast of Honduras.

Popshifter: How did you meet him?

Dan Kennedy rocks on

Dan Kennedy: Through my friend at Rooftop Pictures who is making a documentary on him. It’s a great movie, it’s called A View From Below.

Popshifter: It sounds cool, like exploring things you wouldn’t necessarily think would go together.

Dan Kennedy: Yeah! I’ve been home for two days from the book tour but I’m already pacing around in my cage and writing down a ton of notes and title ideas. That’s usually where I start. (laughs) Title ideas, that’s such a great place for one to start. There’s 60,000 or 70,000 words you’re trying to cook up in your head and you’re like, “YES! (pause) But what will it be called?”

Popshifter: (laughs)

Dan Kennedy: I know I want the cover to be a painting called Fallen Idol by an artist named David Stevenson in Seattle. It’s a brilliant painting and so that’s where I’m starting.

Popshifter: Well, that sounds like a good place to start. So I think that’s all I have unless you have questions for me!

Dan Kennedy: (laughs) It was a pleasure talking to you.

Popshifter: You too, bye.

Additional Resources:

Rock On: An Office Power Ballad is available through Algonquin Books or the book’s website.

Also check out Dan’s Really Small Talk site, version 2.1.

Listen to Dan reading excerpts from Rock On on NPR and and interview on WNYC.

Click to read more from Dan Kennedy on. . .

Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin
The alienation of the “college years”
The death of print media?
The Motown commercial and music now
Being in the slow lane
Definition for mayhem
What’s next?

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