What is Shenny?

It’s a fortnightly inbox magazine in 3 departments: Letter from the Editor, Endorsements, and what I call the Main Matter—a short essay on whatever I find pressing that week.

Why ‘Shenny’?

In casting around for a name for this newsletter I only needed a minute before I found it by taking the names of my sisters, Shani and Jenny, and smooshing them together. I love my sisters, who are both older than I am and have been stars in my life. I mean this both ways: what they wore and who they dated were the news I craved, and I looked to them, up above, as guidance through the dark night. I'm not here to essentialize the feminine, but I aim to make Shenny be of and from the feminine in me: tough and pretty and the first to know what's right.

Who am I?

I'm Dave Madden, an essayist, and San Franciscan, and homosexual, and teacher, and MFA program director, and former H.S. drum major, and blogger, and other things. I write Shenny from one or more of those perspectives, and I sometimes share some work in progress and talk about that progress. I’ve published a short story collection and a nonfiction book on taxidermy, and right now I’m working on a memoir about sex and shame. Find a fuller bio here.

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