About me

Jemma Kennedy has taught many writing courses and workshops at the Arvon Foundation, City Lit and various universities, including three years as Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing and Scriptwriting at Manchester Metropolitan University.

She has been a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chichester, Brunel University and the University of Manchester, and regularly teaches private residential writing courses in the UK and abroad. Jemma’s first novel Skywalking was published by Penguin in 2002.

She began writing for the theatre in 2004 after winning a place in the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Write 2 Competition, which resulted in a writer’s attachment and several rehearsed readings of her work. In 2005 she was awarded a Jerwood Arvon Young Playwright’s Apprenticeship and her work has been performed at the Soho Theatre, the Tabard Theatre and on tour in the Midlands. Her Afternoon Play ‘How to Remember the Dead’ was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2007. Jemma is currently under commission to the National Theatre.

Jemma is Senior Reader for the Royal Exchange Theatre’s Bruntwood Playwriting Competition and has read for the Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award and Northwest Playwrights’ Striking Silver Competition. She is also a script reader for The Film Consortium and works as an independent script editor.