Kenny Fries
Illustration — Fries at the 2017 Texas Book Festival Kenny Fries (born September 22, 1960) is an American memoirist and poet. 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.
Kenny Fries

Larry D. Moore · CC BY 4.0
- Born
- 1960 · Brooklyn.
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- poet
- Education
- Columbia University School of the Arts · Brandeis University
- Honours
- Fulbright Scholarship
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Illustration — Fries at the 2017 Texas Book Festival Kenny Fries (born September 22, 1960) is an American memoirist and poet. 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.
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Kenny Fries (born 1960) is an American poet. The poet was born in Brooklyn. Kenny Fries studied at Brandeis University and Columbia University School of the Arts. The poet received Fulbright Scholarship.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 29 September 2026
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wikidata · Q6391051 · wikipedia · Kenny Fries
In this article
Early life and education
Early life and education
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). In 2017, he created the Fries Test for disability in fiction and film, akin to the Bechdel Test for women.
Fries was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated with an MFA from Columbia University's School for the Arts. Fries graduated in 1977 from John Dewey high school and went on to pursue a degree in English and American Literature, at Brandeis University. He received a master's degree in Playwriting at Columbia University.
Career
Career
Kenny Fries officially started writing in 1988, after he had begun attending Millay Colony for the Arts. The majority of Fries' books and poems were written due to his experiences as a disabled, gay, Jewish man. Some of the writings that Fries has written include: Body, Remember: A Memoir (2003), Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out, The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory (2007), Anesthesia: Poems by Kenny Fries (1996), Desert Walking: Poems (2000), The Healing Notebooks (1990) and Night After Night: Poems (1984). Some of the scholarly writings written by Fries include: "Songs of Whitman" (2003), "Comedy is Not a Crutch" (2001), and "Where Ecstasy Might Reside" (1995).
Fries Test
Fries Test
Inspired by Alison Bechdel's test to determine if a creative work has a fair representation of women, Fries created the "Fries Test" for disability. Fries wrote that to pass the Fries Test, a creative work needs: • to have more than one disabled character; • the disabled characters need to have their own narrative purpose other than the education and profit of a nondisabled character; • the characters' disability should not be eradicated either by curing or killing.
Works
Works
• The Healing Notebooks (1990) • Anesthesia: Poems (1996) • Body, Remember: A Memoir (1997) • Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out (1997) • Desert Walking: Poems (2000) • The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin's Theory (2007) • The Memory Stone (2013) • In the Gardens of Japan (2017) • In the Province of the Gods (2017)
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1960
Kenny Fries born at Brooklyn.
Honors and awards
Kenny Fries received the 2007 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the study of Bigotry and Human Rights. He was a Creative Arts Fellow of the Japan-US Friendship commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as being twice a Fulbright scholar to Japan and Germany. In 2009, Fries received residency in the artists' community in Yaddo. In 2010 he received Ledig House International writers residency. Fries has also collaborated with composers Kumiko Takahashi and Yuka Takechi, and singer Mika Kimula on their new music work In the Gardens of Japan, which has been performed in Tokyo, Yokohama, and New York City. Fries has also received a grant in Literature from the Creative Capital to complete his memoir, In the Province of the Gods, which will be published September 19, 2017 by University of Wisconsin Press.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Klein, Jeff. "The Starting Line: What Is Disability?: May 16, 2008", The New York Times, 2008-05-16. Retrieved on 2009-05-23.]
- 2.Houston Grand Opera presents The Memory Stone. CultureMap Houston.
- 3.Fulbright Scholar Stories Kenny Fries Fulbright Scholar Program. www.cies.org.
- 4.Fries, Kenny. The Fries Test: On Disability Representation in Our Culture. Medium. 2017-11-01.
- 5.Kenny Fries: On How Being Disabled Influences His Work, Gay Pride, and Writing about Identity. 29 July 2015.
- 6.Nelson, Emmanuel Sampath (2003). Contemporary Gay American Poets and Playwrights, Greenwood Publishing Group.
- 7.INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR KENNY FRIES.
- 8.Kenny Fries Fulbright Scholar Program. www.cies.org.
- 9.Writers. Yaddo. 2016-09-11.
- 10."In the Gardens of Japan" by Kenny Fries. CreateSpace.
- 11.Creative Capital - Investing in Artists who Shape the Future. www.creative-capital.org.
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Kenny Fries is recorded as having received Fulbright Scholarship.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 25 August 2026.
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