Kostya Kennedy
Kostya Kennedy is Editor in Chief of Premium Publishing at People Inc., overseeing special editions under People, LIFE, TIME, Verywell, Real Simple, EatingWell, Health, Investopedia, and other brands. The editions embrace a range of topics including pop culture, health and wellness, food, lifestyle, music, sports and pets. He is a former assistant managing editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated. He has been a staff writer at Newsday and has written for numerous outlets including the New York Times, TIME, FiveThirtyEight.com and the New Yorker.
Along with 2025’s The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night the Saved America, Kennedy is the author of True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson the New York Times bestsellers 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports, and Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. All three of those books received the CASEY Award as Best Baseball Book of its respective year. Kennedy’s 2016 book Lasting Impact: One Team, One Season. What Happens When Our Sons Play Football followed a season of high school football.
Kennedy earned an M.S. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, from which he received a Pulitzer Fellowship. He has taught in the graduate journalism program at Columbia and taught at NYU, in the journalism department, and at the Preston Robert Tisch Institute of Global Sport.
His television work includes appearances as a contributing analyst and commentator on the MLB Network, as well as appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers, Morning Joe, and numerous other television and radio programs. Kennedy edited Sports Illustrated’s The Story of Baseball in 100 Photographs, Super Bowl Gold: 50 Years of the Big Game, The Hockey Book, and Swimsuit: 50 Years of Beautiful.
Kennedy grew up on Long Island, where he lived in a house, which he wrote about here. Before Columbia, he graduated with honors as a philosophy major from Stony Brook University where he competed in exactly one game of the school’s rogue bloodsport, pit hockey. Kennedy also played bass guitar as a founding member of the specialty band Rychyrd Prychyrd. He lives with his family in New York.
Hardcover
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USA Today Bestseller
Timed for the 250th anniversary of America’s revolution and founding: Paul Revere’s heroic ride, newly told with fresh research into little-known aspects of the story Americans have heard since childhood but hardly understood
On April 18, 1775, a Boston-based silversmith, engraver, and anti-British polit...Read More
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Trade Paperback
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Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year
True is a probing, richly-detailed, unique biography of Jackie Robinson, one of baseball's—and America's—most significant figures.
For players, fans, managers, and executives, Jackie Robinson remains baseball’s singular figure, the person who most profou...Read More
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Hardcover
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New York Times bestselling author Kostya Kennedy sets this captivating, character-rich story against the back-drop of one of the most pressing questions in sports: Should we let our sons play football? At the high end of America's most popular game is the glittering NFL, a fan-stoked money machine and also an opaque enterprise under scruti...Read More
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Hardcover
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"Kennedy's book on the tarnished and enigmatic Rose is exceptional. Like the best writing about sport--Liebling, Angell--it qualifies as stirring literature. I'd read Kennedy no matter what he writes about." --Richard Ford
Pete Rose played baseball with a singular and headfirst abandon that endeared him to fans and peers, even as it riled others...Read More
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Hardcover
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Winner of the 2011 CASEY Award from Spitball Magazine
Seventy baseball seasons ago, on a May afternoon at Yankee Stadium, Joe DiMaggio lined a hard single to leftfield. It was the quiet beginning to the most resonant baseball achievement of all time. Starting that day, the vaunted Yankee centerfielder kept on hitting-at least one...Read More
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The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
Paul Revere: His life and his thrilling, critical, midnight ride of April 18, 1775 and his ride in the context of today’s America and global tenor. What he represents, symbolizes and signifies. Kostya Kennedy will also speak to the onset of the American Revolution, and the tenor of the time and the circumstances and events in the years leading up to the battles of Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.
A History of Baseball: From Joe DiMaggio to Jackie Robinson
This keynote explores baseball as a uniquely American institution—both a pastime and a mirror of the nation itself—moving fluidly between the modern landscape of Major League Baseball and the game’s rich historical arc from the 1940s through to today. Anchored by iconic figures, Kostya Kennedy revisits many great players, including Joe DiMaggio’s life and his astonishing 56-game hitting streak in the summer of 1941, set against “the last innocent summer” before America’s entry into World War II and the broader social history of that moment. Kostya examines the nature of baseball records, probability, and why certain athletic achievements endure in the national imagination. The talk also Jackie Robinson, analyzing his life, playing style, and revolutionary impact on baseball, American society, and the Civil Rights movement. In addition, Kostya Kennedy confronts the complicated legacy of Pete Rose, using Pete’s career and Hall of Fame controversy to probe enduring moral questions about forgiveness, intent, conformity, and social values.
The Art of the Print Magazine
In this talk, Kostya explores all topics related to editorial creation and production and business principles. He highlights Sports Illustrated magazine in its final stages of outsized influence and opinion shaping in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s Audiences will leave this talk with a better understanding of print magazines and how and why they continue to thrive in a new form in 2026 and beyond.
Sports Safety
In this talk, Kostya explores High School football and the question of its safety.
“New book recounts Paul Revere’s dramatic ride”
“The enduring resonance of Paul Revere’s ride”
“Boston Globe Love Letters Column”
“Unpacking the legacy of William Dawes, the other midnight rider”
“PEOPLE’s Best Books of March 2025”
“Why Paul Revere Still Matters Today”
“‘The Ride’ by Kostya Kennedy”
“Authors on Audio: Kostya Kennedy”
Praise forThe Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America
“As recognizable as the name is, we did not know the real Paul Revere until Kostya Kennedy revealed the man in full in The Ride. Thanks to a fascinating, detailed narrative, we discover not only Revere’s heroism but also the larger and dangerous role Revere played with other famous patriots in creating a new republic.” — Tom Clavin, New York Times bestselling author of Bandit Heaven
“Fascinating…dramatic…a skillful separation of truth, legend, and what lies between in a canonical American story.”– Kirkus Reviews
“An important book for readers seeking a deeper understanding of a crucial moment in American history. It will captivate history scholars, students, and enthusiasts from start to finish.” — Library Journal
“A richly detailed, congenial, and dryly humorous account of Paul Revere’s 1775 ride to Lexington and Concord and his legacy. … The perfect read to mark the 250th anniversary of this foundational act.” — Booklist (starred review)
“With The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, Kennedy brings his clear prose and flair for play-by-play storytelling to unravel fact from legend in one of the best-known stories in American history: the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” — Deborah Hopkinson, Book Page (starred review)
“Thorough … engaging … readers with an interest in history will find The Ride a compelling and informative account of Paul Revere.” — Jim Piecuch, Journal of the American Revolution
“The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, by Kostya Kennedy, brings Revere to life fully, making him not simply a patriot for his time but a beacon for our time, too.” — John Baldoni, Forbes
“‘The Ride’ is a great look at how important a single individual can be in the shaping of the future of an entire nation. It’s also a great introduction to the early events of the American Revolution as our country celebrates its 250th anniversary.” — Jennifer Huberdeau, The Berkshire Eagle
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