Pulitzer Prize-winning author to visit SUNY Adirondack

QUEENSBURY, New York (March 16, 2026) — William Kennedy is 98 years old, and still a storyteller. In a Zoom interview from his Averill Park home, Kennedy regaled with tales of serving in the Korean War, working in Puerto Rico as a reporter, covering the Cuban revolution and winning a Pulitzer Prize.

“It becomes a mania with you, when you truly become a writer,” the still-sharp Kennedy said. “It’s a great life. I love being a writer.”

Kennedy will speak at 12:30 p.m. Monday, March 30, in the Visual Arts Gallery at SUNY Adirondack as part of the college’s Writers Project series. The event is free and open to the public.

Kennedy is widely regarded as one of the most important chroniclers of New York’s Capital Region. In the event at SUNY Adirondack, he will discuss his life as a writer, the relationship between journalism and fiction, and the enduring role of Albany as a character in his celebrated novels.

Best known for his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel “Ironweed," Kennedy built a distinguished literary career rooted in the people, politics and history of Albany. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he worked as a journalist, an experience he credits with shaping his voice as a writer.

“I’m an old newspaperman,” Kennedy said. “There was a time when a great many writers who worked for newspapers went on to become novelists. Journalism taught me concise language — to get the story in the first paragraph. But novels work differently. When I began taking language more seriously and writing at a higher level than newspaper prose allowed, everything changed.”

“I always felt that if you wanted to be a writer, you had to immerse yourself in literature,” Kennedy said. “You read everything — the great American writers, the Irish writers, the Russians, the poets. You feed your brain, and your brain does something with it.”

In addition to his literary achievements, Kennedy played a major role in supporting writers across New York state. Along with fellow author Saul Bellow and with support from the MacArthur Foundation, Kennedy helped found New York State Writers Institute, which has hosted generations of internationally acclaimed authors. He also taught creative writing at the University at Albany and Cornell University.

Kennedy continues to write and is working on a new novel about Martin Glynn, an Irishman from County Clare who became governor of New York when William “Plain Bill” Sulzer was impeached and removed from office.

“I am very much taken with him,” Kennedy said of Glynn, who was the first Catholic governor of the state, a progressive who stood up to Charles “Boss” Murphy, who led powerful Democratic political machine Tammany Hall. “There are so many things to tell in Albany, so many chronologies you need to know.”

He jokes that he doesn’t read or work as much as he used to. “I’m tired the way old people get,” he smiled. But he relishes in the process of writing, noting that Chapter 22 in this book was “tough as hell.”

“Writing is hard work — you fail a lot, and it takes years to learn how to do it. But it’s a wonderful, free life,” Kennedy said. “Even now, I wake up wanting to go to work and write.”

Kennedy’s presentation at the Writers Project is made possible in part by an Ian Fleming Foundation grant. The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held in Dearlove Hall on SUNY Adirondack’s Queensbury campus and live-streamed via Zoom at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7977212478?pwd=ZXU5WlpJRXZ1YmZoNFNJak1yYVpSUT09

The series continues with:

• 12:40 p.m. Monday, April 13: Casey Walsh, author of “The Full Catastrophe,” will discuss this  thought-provoking read on grief, trauma and ultimately recovery.
• 12:40 p.m. Monday, April 27: SUNY Adirondack Distinguished Professor of English and founder of The Writers Project Lâle Davidson will read from her short stories and discuss how to write fiction about family without starting a family feud.   
   

About author William Kennedy

William Kennedy was raised in Albany’s North End, attended Christian Brothers Academy and Siena College. He worked as a reporter for The Post-Star, an Army newspaper in Europe and the Albany Times Union, and was founding managing editor of San Juan Star.

He is author of more than a dozen books, including novels, nonfiction and children’s books, three plays and two screenplays. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for his novel “Ironweed.” Kennedy was also a finalist for the PEN/ Faulkner Award for Fiction, and awarded a Regents Medal of Excellence from the State University of New York and a New York State Governor’s Arts Award.

Kennedy helped found New York State Writers Institute. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1993, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. He has received many literary awards, including the first Eugene O’Neill Lifetime Achievement Award, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Award, and was named a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, PEN and Writers Guild of America.