Educated in Wellington, Kennedy was a piano teacher and music librarian in her early years. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Victoria University of Wellington and taught at Trinity College London.[1] In 2007 she completed a Master of Arts at Victoria University of Wellington, under the supervision of Lydia Wevers, titled Kicking round home: Atonality in the Bone People.[2]
Career
Since 1986, she has been a freelance scriptwriter. Anne Kennedy published her first novel in 1988, and has since published six novels and books of poetry. Her most recent novel, The Last Days of the National Costume, was featured on the Listener's Top 100 Books of 2013, and on the Nielson 2013 Bestseller's list in New Zealand adult fiction.
In 2006, Kennedy was a visiting writer at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.[1] She was a professor there for several years. Currently, she teaches creative writing at Manukau Institute of Technology. She was co-editor of literary journal Ika, and was co-editor of the online literary journal Trout[3][4] and co-edited the 2005 Best New Zealand Poems series.
Her work has appeared in Landfall, Sport, NZ Listener, Southerly (Australia), and JAAM, and she has co-edited several other works including the 2005 Best New Zealand Poems series.[5]