Wendy Kennar is a writer, wife, mother, and former elementary school teacher. Being a lifelong Angeleno gives Wendy a unique perspective as it applies to writing about family life and all the amazing things there are to do in Los Angeles with kiddos of all ages.
During college she worked at a flower shop (her first paycheck-paying job) and then a library, before graduating and becoming a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Wendy earned a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies from California State University Northridge.
Wendy taught kindergarten, fourth, and fifth grades for a total of twelve years, until it became medically necessary for her to retire from her teaching career. Leaving teaching also meant losing a huge part of Wendy’s identity. For Wendy, teaching was an honor and something she was incredibly passionate about.
About Wendy Kennar
Wendy believes we all want to be truly seen and understood. And, she believes everyone lives with pain and scars of some kind; some easily visible, some seemingly invisible. When not writing posts for MomsLA — including the weekly Best Things to Do This Weekend in Los Angeles with Kids — Wendy writes personal nonfiction to demonstrate the wide-ranging experiences of disability and to offer connection and support to others living with chronic illness and chronic pain.
After receiving her invisible disability diagnosis more than a decade ago, Wendy searched for answers and solace in books. At the time, she didn’t find much. Now, Wendy writes for her readers and for herself, to write the pieces she needed to read but didn’t exist. She writes as a way of processing and making sense of this unexpected life path she is on. And, Wendy writes as a means of extending a hand and a gentle hug to other members of the chronic illness community.
Wendy invites you to visit her website (www.wendykennar.com) and sign up for her weekly blog posts. Each post focuses on one of two B’s in her life — Books and Bodies. If you’re like Wendy, you’re a reader who can sometimes feel overwhelmed by all the books you’re curious about and all the books you have bought on visits to indie bookstores and have yet to read. That’s where Wendy can help. It gives her great pleasure to highlight a book and its author by sharing some of her favorite passages with her blog readers. With her book-related posts, Wendy’s intent is to offer some guidance and help you select your next read, or maybe convince you to add a particular title to your ever-growing want-to-read list. (At least, Wendy’s list is ever-growing. Yours too?)
And while books can serve as a great escape tool, that’s just temporary. So the other topic Wendy regularly writes about is her life with an invisible disability. Because the reality is you can’t live with a chronic illness without it impacting every aspect of your life and your body. Through lived experiences, Wendy discovered that having an invisible disability is like having an octopus in her life, tentacles stretching out and touching one area of her life after another. A chronic illness is truly all-encompassing.
At the same time, Wendy acknowledges the fate that brought her to MomsLA. If she hadn’t left her teaching career, she would not have had the time to begin writing on a consistent basis and to submit that writing to different online journals and websites, including MomsLA.
Wendy is an ocean-loving, tomato-disliking, never-learned-to-whistle Los Angeles native. In fact, she has spent her entire life living in the same zip code — three different addresses, though. (Many years ago, she wrote a piece that was published in the L.A. Affairs section of the Los Angeles Times.) Wendy has deep roots here in Los Angeles, as well as an interest in exploring and discovering. She has gone parasailing (three times), hot air ballooning (twice), and zip lining (once – so far). Wendy prefers sunflowers to roses, silver to gold (as you can see from the nine rings she wears on eight of her fingers), and she still stops and marvels at the sight of a butterfly, a hummingbird, or a rainbow.
Several years ago, Wendy read something that really helped her. Instead of asking Why me? as in Why did I get sick? The question really should be Why not me? What makes me any more special than anyone else? After all, everyone is dealing with something. Life can be hard and scary. At the same time, life can be magical and inspiring. Wendy writes about it all.
Connect with Wendy on Instagram @wendykennar
on her weekly blog on her website https://www.wendykennar.com
and sign up for her new Substack wendykennar.substack.com
