Kenny Fries (born September 22, 1960) is an American memoirist and poet.[1] He is the author of In the Province of the Gods (2017), The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory (2007), Body, Remember: A Memoir (1997), and editor of Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (1997). He was commissioned by Houston Grand Opera to write the libretto for The Memory Stone, which premiered in 2013.[2] His books of poems include In the Gardens of Japan (2017), Desert Walking (2006) and Anesthesia (2000). He received a 2009 Creative Capital grant in Innovative Literature, the 2007 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, the Gregory Kolovakos Award, a Creative Arts Fellowship from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission and the National Endowment, and has twice been a Fulbright Scholar (in Japan and Germany).[3] In 2017, he created the Fries Test for disability in fiction and film, akin to the Bechdel Test for women.[4]
- ^ Klein, Jeff. "The Starting Line: What Is Disability?: May 16, 2008", The New York Times, 2008-05-16. Retrieved on 2009-05-23.]
- ^ "Houston Grand Opera presents The Memory Stone". CultureMap Houston. Retrieved 2017-08-15.
- ^ "Fulbright Scholar Stories | Kenny Fries | Fulbright Scholar Program". www.cies.org. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
- ^ Fries, Kenny (2017-11-01). "The Fries Test: On Disability Representation in Our Culture". Medium. Retrieved 2018-11-02.
- ^ "Kenny Fries: On How Being Disabled Influences His Work, Gay Pride, and Writing about Identity". 29 July 2015.