KC Teen Plaza Issues

I'm a co-author! I seriously wish this was a blog post about my first journal publication, but it's not. It is  a post about a report I co-authored entitled Youth Flash Mobs in Kansas City: Causes, Consequences and Recommendations by Houston, Seo, Kennedy and Knight. It has gotten press in the Kansas City Star, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the Lawrence Journal-World. I particularly like the article by Lynn Horsley in the Kansas City Star. She did an excellent job.

Also, I co-presented the report to the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department with Leigh Anne Taylor Knight and that was fun! I wore a suit. Not kidding. It was neato. I think I was always hoping my research would help someone somehow, but only expecting that I would have to settle for helping other academics. It is really exciting to be able to contribute to the public discourse. Yay!

Parker's Beware the Wild

So, grad school is moving along swimmingly. I turned in two finals this week and now all I want to do is dance. The end of the semester is not my only good reason for partying like a wild woman. One of my best friends EVAR, Natalie Parker just got a two-book deal for her debut young adult novel, Beware the Wild. Here's the Publisher's Marketplace announcement (which I thank my graduate advisor for emailing around).

Natalie Parker's BEWARE THE WILD, pitched as Twin Peaks meets The Village, in which a claustrophobic Louisiana town is dominated by its sinister, encroaching swamp, which swallows up a boy who is instantly forgotten by everyone except his sister, and replaced by a mysterious girl from the past who is intent on taking over his family and his life, to Phoebe Yeh at Harper Children's, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal, for publication in Winter 2014, by Sarah Davies at the Greenhouse Literary Agencyy (NA).
Foreign: info@rightspeople.com

Is that fabulous, or what?! Yes, now I will know two amazing young adult authors in this one little college town. Life is truly grand.

Non sequitor: I love summer. Pool parties are second best to dance parties.

Songs of New Asgard

I cannot wait to read the Songs of New Asgard series by Tessa Gratton. It was announced on Publisher's Weekly today, and it's going to be great!

Imagine if the spread of monotheistic Christianity had been stopped cold hundreds of years ago, and in it's place the Norse gods held sway.

How different would this alternate reality be? It's going to be so great to find out!

I have extra special reasons to be excited about this. For one, I read her debut novel Blood Magic and it was awesome.

Cover of Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton

For twos, she's one of my best friends!

Natalie Parker, Tess Gratton, and Emily Kennedy

So yeah. I AM EXCITED!!!!

e

Indomitable

This evening we tried to take baby to his first Sporting Kansas City game at Livestrong Park. We lasted about 20 minutes. Then SKC scored, the crowd went wild, and baby melted down. Too loud! Next big event, we're looking into ear protection.

Much louder than the music in this video. Poor baby. It's the never-ending chase.

The Goods

Let me mention two of my recent creations.

Creation number one: I successfully defended my Master's thesis entitled What She Wore: The Dialectics of Personal Style Blogs. I've added a link to this site in the right hand navigation area. If you click on the link you'll download a .PDF file of my thesis. So my Master's degree in Sociology is complete. On to the PhD.

Creation number two: my son Colin is growing so fast! Five full months old and just as awesome a human as I could imagine. Here's one of my current favorite photos:

My son was born in December 2010 and I defended my thesis in May 2011. It's been a busy six months or so. I'm hoping for a relaxing summer. 

Meet Colin, My New Baby

So! Welcome Colin Thomas Kennedy to the world.

My first child was born this past Tuesday, December 28th, at home at 6:38 a.m. He weighed 7 lbs. 12 ou., and arrived 12 days early. Labor was eight hours long. Mom, Dad, and baby are all healthy, happy, and in blissful love.

The one thing that I didn't accurately anticipate? Nursing is sincerely hard work. Hard work as in a complete preoccupation for many hours of every day and night.

Favorite Books

Hot Guys Reading Books posted about her favorite books today. Here are mine, off the top of my head.

The Passion by Winterson
Anathem by Stephenson
Middlesex by Eugenides
Howard's End by Forster
Prodigal Summer by Kingsolver
100 Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez

YUM.

I'm looking forward to the winter break and a return to the decadence of reading fiction. These are on the docket:

Linger by Stiefvater
The Replacement by Yovanoff
Tongues of Serpents by Novik
Zorro by Allende

And, because what is reading without some non-fiction thrown in?

Disintegration by Robinson
The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Pantley
Convergence Culture by Jenkins

Maternity leave here I come!