Patricia Kennealy-Morrison

Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
Born	(1946-03-04) March 4, 1946 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Residence	United States
Occupation	Journalist, writer

Patricia Kennealy-Morrison (born Patricia Kennely; March 4, 1946) is an American author and journalist. Her published works include rock criticism, a memoir, and two series of science fiction/fantasy and murder mystery novels. Most of her books are part of her series, The Keltiad.

As first a writer and then the editor-in-chief of Jazz and Pop magazine in the late 1960s, she was one of the first women rock critics. Kennealy-Morrison has worked as an advertising copywriter, receiving two Clio nominations. She is a Dame of the Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani, a High Priestess in a Celtic Pagan tradition and a member of Mensa.^[1][2]

Life and career

Kennealy-Morrison was born in Brooklyn, New York, and reared on Long Island in the hamlet of North Babylon.^[2]

She attended St. Bonaventure University for two years, majoring in Journalism. She later transferred to Harpur College (now Binghamton University) where she graduated with a B.A. in English Literature in 1967. She then moved to New York City, where she worked first as a lexicographer for Macmillan Publishing, then as an editorial assistant at and, from 1968–1971, editor-in-chief of Jazz and Pop magazine. She was one of the first female rock critics, leaving the field in 1971.^[2]

As editor-in-chief of Jazz and Pop she first interviewed Jim Morrison of the rock band The Doors in January 1969. After the interview, they began a correspondence, became friends and later lovers. She and Morrison exchanged marriage vows in a Celtic handfasting ceremony in June 1970.^[2] Before witnesses, one of them a Presbyterian minister,^[3] - according to her memoir - the couple signed a document declaring themselves wed.^[4] In 1992, Kennealy-Morrison published a memoir about her months with Jim Morrison, Strange Days: My Life With And Without Jim Morrison. Her book places great emphasis on the hand-fasting ceremony, even though she told Victoria Balfour, the author of "Rock Wives: The Hard Lives and Good Times of the Wives, Girlfriends, and Groupies of Rock and Roll," published in 1986, that Morrison took their ceremony "probably not too seriously." Jim Morrison's will stated that "I declare that I am a resident of Los Angeles County, California; that I am unmarried and have no children." ^[5] In the photo section of her book, Kenneally-Morrison includes a picture of a document in her own hand-writing, with her own signature and the signature "J Morrison" at the bottom of the document. The picture's caption states: "Signatures of the witnesses have been obscured to protect their privacy." The identities of the witnesses remain unknown.

Although handfasting, like other religious ceremonies, is not legal unless the appropriate State paperwork is filed, she later changed her legal name to include Morrison's name, and Morrison allegedly addressed letters and poems to her as "Patricia Morrison" and "my wife, Patricia".^[6] Jim Morrison's will, however, left everything to his long-time companion Pamela Courson.

Keneally-Morrison served as an advisor on Oliver Stone's movie The Doors, and played a small role in the film as the High Priestess who marries the Jim and Patricia characters (portrayed by Val Kilmer and Kathleen Quinlan). However, in subsequent interviews and writings she was scathingly critical of Stone's portrayal of Morrison, herself, and other people who were the basis for the film's fictional characters, saying Stone's fiction bore little to no resemblance to the people she had known or the events they lived through; Stone admitted that the character named after her was a composite of several of Morrison's girlfriends and regretted not giving her a fictional name.^[7][8] In the film her character is referred to as a "Wicca Priestess", but Kennealy-Morrison identifies as a Celtic Pagan, not a Wiccan.^[1]

In 2000, Robin Ventura, third baseman for the pennant-winning New York Mets, took the phrase "Mojo Risin" from The Doors' "L.A. Woman" and made it the rallying cry for the team that year. Ventura and the Mets invited Kennealy-Morrison to a game just before the playoffs, where she met with them and became a Mets fan.^[9]

Lizard Queen Press, the Rennie Stride Mysteries and more recent work

Following an acrimonious split with her publisher Harper-Collins, on May 19, 2007, Kennealy-Morrison announced via her blog that she planned to start her own publishing house, Lizard Queen Press, and to self-publish more novels and non-fiction. The next Keltiad novel was to be The Beltane Queen, and another memoir was in the works as well.^[10][11] A later blog post discussed her thoughts on producing The Beltane Queen through the self-publishing house Lulu.com. The first book to carry the Lizard Queen Press imprint appeared six years later: Rock Chick: A Girl and Her Music (2013), a collection of PKM's writings originally published in Jazz & Pop magazine.

In June 2007 the author posted that she was in the midst of final preparations to publish Ungrateful Dead: Murder at the Fillmore, the first in a series of murder mysteries set in the turbulent world of 1960s rock & roll. Ungrateful Dead introduces the character of Rennie Stride, rock reporter/detective, and her boyfriend (later husband) Turk Wayland, superstar English lead guitarist. Kennealy-Morrison has described the series as:

Seamlessly blending the fictional with the real: the stars, the bands, the music, all the excitement of the most incredible decade of the last century... Full of rockworld dish and attitude, created by someone who was not only there for it but made some of it happen herself, and who took just enough drugs to get into it and not so many that she can't remember it...^[11]

Ungrateful Dead was published on November 1, 2007, to coincide with both the Day of the Dead and The Celtic New Year.^[11] Further novels in the Rennie Stride series are California Screamin': Murder at Monterey Pop (2009) and Go Ask Malice: Murder at Woodstock (2012).

Errata

The author's legal name is "Patricia Kennealy Morrison". As a rock critic and editor, she published under her birth name, "Patricia Kennely", and later as "Patricia Kennealy". From 1994 - 2007 her books were published as "Patricia Kennealy-Morrison", with the hyphen.^[1][2] Ungrateful Dead and the following Rennie Stride novels are her first books to be published as simply "Patricia Morrison".

Bibliography

Novels

The Keltiad

• Blackmantle: A Triumph (1997)

Tales of Aeron

• The Copper Crown (1984)
• The Throne of Scone (1986)
• The Silver Branch (1988)

Tales of Arthur

• The Hawk's Grey Feather (1990)
• The Oak Above the Kings (1994)
• The Hedge of Mist (1996)

Colloquies of the Ancients

• The Deer's Cry (1998)

The Rennie Stride Mysteries

The Rock & Roll Murders

• Ungrateful Dead: Murder at the Fillmore (2007)
• California Screamin': Murder at Monterey Pop (2009)
• Go Ask Malice: Murder at Woodstock (2012)

Non-fiction

• Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison (1992)
• Rock Chick: A Girl and Her Music (2013)

Anthologies

• Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap, eds. Evelyn McDonnell and Ann Powers (1995), "Rock Around the Cock". ISBN 0-385-31250-4. pp.358–363.
• The Faces of Fantasy: Photographs by Patti Perret, intro. by Terri Windling, ISBN 0-312-86182-6
• Crusade of Fire: Mystical Tales of the Knights Templar, ed. Katherine Kurtz (2002), "The Last Voyage". ISBN 0-446-61090-9

References

External links

• Mrs Morrison's Hotel - Patricia Kennealy-Morrison's official blog
• Patricia Kennealy Morrison's LiveJournal
• Patricia Kennealy-Morrison on Myspace
• Patricia Kennealy-Morrison at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Patricia Kennealy-Morrison at the Internet Movie Database
• An interview with Patricia Kennealy-Morrison about the 1991 film The Doors
• Interview with Patricia Kennealy in Taliesin's Successors: Interviews with Authors of Modern Arthurian Literature
• Author's Dragon*Con biography (from the February 12, 2008 version at Internet Archive, accessed June 6, 2008)
• "Mets have only themselves to blame after trading Ventura" Kennealy-Morrison comments on the New York Mets and the career of Morrison fan, third baseman Robin Ventura

Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 30339211 LCCN: n86827368 ISNI: 0000 0000 6318 0118 GND: 119089912

Persondata
Name	Kennealy-Morrison, Patricia
Alternative names
Short description	American writer
Date of birth	March 4, 1946
Place of birth	Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Date of death
Place of death