Sean Kelly (writer)
Seán Kelly was born in July 1940 on a farm outside Montreal, Quebec. After graduating from (now-extinct) Loyola College he worked as a radio actor, newspaper reporter, advertising copywriter, television scriptwriter, quiz show judge & schoolteacher -- but not all at the same time. In 1967 he co-wrote Expo Inside Out, a bestselling but highly unofficial guide to the Montreal World’s Fair. In 1972, he migrated to NYC to co-write the infamous off-Broadway mock rock musical “Lemmings.” He received the Drama Desk Award for his lyrics (but so far not a penny in royalties .) “Pop debunking perhaps reached its zenith in the early ‘70s with albums like “Goodbye Pop” … and “National Lampoon’s Lemmings,” in which Christopher Guest, Sean Kelly, Tony Hendra and others gleefully desanctified hallowed touchstones of the rock counterculture.” - Stephen Holden, The New York Times, June 25, 1989. He was an editor of the National Lampoon magazine when it was funny – from 1971 until 1978. “Sean Kelly . . . broke his own record for obscurantism several times, reaching an apotheosis with a dense parody of Finnegans Wake.” - Nathaniel Stein, The Daily Beast. July 1, 2013. In 1977 he was a founding editor of  Heavy Metal, the ‘adult fantasy magazine.’ As a freelance, he has been eclectic; published in Bazaar, Benneton’s Colors, Interview, Irish America Magazine, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, Playboy, SPY, The Village Voice, & the Quarterly of Joyce Studies. He reviewed a great many children’s books for the New York Times. Of his contribution to the Off-Broadway musical "Diamonds,” Christian Science Monitor critic John Beaufort wrote, “Certainly the most exotic parody of the occasion is Sean Kelly's hilarious "Kasi Atta Batt," which turns out to be a Japanese Kabuki version, complete with lion dancer and samurai, of the  lament known to untutored Western ears as "Casey at the Bat." CSM, December 28, 1984. He worked extensively in children’s television: for CBS Young People’s Concerts & Drawing Power, for the FOX series Goosebumps & The Magic School Bus, & for the PBS series Shining Time Station & Noddy and Friends. His only Emmy (2004) was for the early literacy PBS series, Between the Lions. He has participated in ‘adult television’ – including a brief stint on SNL, two attempted baseball/variety shows, a sit-com series, a couple of crime dramas, and the re-re-cycling of Woodstock; he appeared on the  small screen hosting a PBS arts show, trying to swim in a suit of armor, and dressed as a beaver. He created material for John Candy, George Carlin, Jane Curtin, Robert Klein, Steve Martin, Martin Mull, Gilda Radner, & Jonathan Winters. He contributed lyrics to music by Steve Goodman, Christopher Guest, Paul Jacobs, Joe Raposo. Paul Shaffer, & Jim Steinman. He has written (or co-written) very many books, only one of which has been translated into Japanese. They include: Saints Preserve Us! (1993) & How to Be Irish (1999, both with Rosemary Rogers); Irish Folk and Fairy Tales (editor, 1982); Not the  Bible (with Tony Hendra, 1983); Grosseries (with Trish Todd, illustrated by Rick Meyerowitz, 1987); Boom Baby Moon (illustrated by Ron Hauge, 1993) & Bush Photo Oops (with Chris Kelly) 2004. ”Boom Baby Moon” is unlikely – despite the lulling rhythm of Sean Kelly’s poetizing and the innocent-looking illustrations of Ron Hauge – to con the densest of grown-ups into thinking it’s a simple children’s book. I suspect it will be banned shortly after it appears in our nation’s bookstores, that it will never have a chance of making the libraries, and that its creators will be speedily  investigated by a Senate committee.” - Gahan Wilson, NY Times Book Review, Dec. 5, 1993. He has five grown-up children and nine grand daughters and lives in Brooklyn.