Writer
I love the solitary act of writing.
Poetry, memoir, journaling, commemorative books, training manuals, articles, songs.
Some have been published, some not yet, and some were written for the drawer.
Memoir Order book here
A Song for Bohemia
My memoir was first published in the Czech language by Práh Publishing in October 2024 with the title: Moje píseň pro Čechy. The English-language version, A Song for Bohemia, is now available internationally through online distribution channels and select bookstores,
374 pages
SUMMARY
PRAGUE IN THE 1990s, an extraordinary place and time. The Cold War had ended. The Berlin Wall had fallen. Soviet-bloc countries like Czechoslovakia had just liberated themselves. The atmosphere was intoxicating, the future unmapped. And Anne Marie Kenny was there—a singer-turned-entrepreneur.
Her true-life story reads like fascinating fiction—enduring family tragedy, singing at 21 on the Champs Élysées, enjoying an artistic career in Paris and Nice, and performing in Prague at the invitation of Václav Havel before moving there to start a business.
Readers meet remarkable people along Kenny’s path: her attorney father who drowned in a boating accident when she was two; her Czech-American mother left to raise five children alone; François Mitterrand’s economist who engaged her mind and heart; a Catholic cardinal who, under communism, heard confessions while window-washing; a secretary whose grandfather had been forced into slave labor at Jáchymov uranium mines; a photographer whose parents were married at Terezín concentration camp; and Kenny’s beloved war-hero husband—to name a few.
In the decade following the Velvet Revolution, the author lived and worked alongside Czechs discovering their place in a new democratic society while coming to terms with their past under totalitarian rule—a past they rarely spoke about. Likewise, Kenny kept secret the inner turmoil beneath her outer success. In her raw telling, these vices often threatened to destroy her, until the hand of music, artistry, and love extended a reprieve.
She and those around her moved forward with Havel’s message as their driving force, building a civil society that is “humane, moral, intellectual, spiritual, and cultural.”
A Song for Bohemia is a love song and a tribute to the spirit of the Czech people, a story of a personal and collective journey to freedom. With the voice of an impassioned artist, this memoir does not merely speak, it sings.
Articles
Remembering Janine Reiss, Maître de Chant
Published in Journal of Singing November/December 2020
Volume 7 No. 2, pp. 267–271 Copyright © 2020
National Association of Teachers of Singing
SUMMARY
I called her Janine, my friend and teacher. Madame Reiss lived in Paris and taught (to name only a few) Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti...and me. When she passed away at the age of 99 in 2020, the world lost a musical legend and genuine grande dame. Janine was a master of classical songs, opera scores, many languages, and the human voice. I was privileged to work with her for over thirty years.
Books
100 ans: Centennial History of the Alliance Française d’Omaha (2017)
Copyright 2017 by Alliance Française Omaha
Co-authored with Holly Richmond and Jan Lund
Printed by Standard Printing Company, Omaha, NE
Book Design by DayCloud Studios,
Pages 163
SUMMARY
100 ans = One Hundred Years. This book commemorates and describes the founding and long history of the Omaha chapter of the Alliance Française. With the help of a group of Alliance members providing historical research, Holly Richmond and I wrote and organized the book’s text. Holly was the chief editor. Among other narratives, the book tells the story of each of the presidents who served the Alliance over the years.