Jennifer Finney Boylan
Encyclopedia
Jennifer Finney Boylan (born James Richard Boylan, Jr., June 22, 1958 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
) is an American author and professor at Colby College
. She has openly discussed being a trans woman
. Boylan's memoir, She's Not There, was published by Broadway Books
in 2003
. Until 2001, she published under the name James Boylan. Boylan has been a frequent guest on a number of national television and radio programs, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live
, The Today Show, Chez Laura, and All My Children
. She was the subject of a documentary on CBS 48 Hours
.
She is also an ongoing contributor to Conde Nast Traveler
magazine; her most recent work there concerned the islands of Casco Bay, Maine, in the July 2005 issue, and a story about the Turks and Caicos in February 2006. Boylan has also contributed articles to GQ, People
, Allure
, and Glamour
. Her column, "There From Here", appears on Sundays in the papers of the Central Maine
newspaper chain.
in 1980. From there, she moved to New York, where she was the managing editor of American Bystander magazine, the short-lived American Punch founded by the first cast of Saturday Night Live
and an ad-hoc group of New Yorker cartoonists and SCTV
actors and writers. Upon the demise of American Bystander in 1982, Boylan became an editorial assistant at Viking/Penguin, working for the managing editor of the Viking Press
. Boylan followed with a stint as the production editor of the fiction line at E.P. Dutton until 1985.
She married Deirdre Finney in Washington, D.C., in 1988.http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/27/style/deirdre-finney-to-wed-in-june.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12boylan.html?em They have two children.
, where she worked with John Barth
, Edward Albee
, Doris Grumbach
and John Irwin.
Since 1988, Jenny Boylan has been a professor of creative writing
and American literature
at Colby College
. Boylan was a visiting professor at University College Cork, Ireland
, in 1998-99. She was promoted to the rank of full Professor in May 2001, and was chosen by students as the Charles Walker Bassett "Professor of the Year" in 2000. At present, she is Director of Creative Writing at Colby. Jenny is also the Hoyer-Updike Distinguished Visiting Creative Writer for the fall of 2010 at Ursinus College.
in 1988.
Her first novel, The Planets, was published by the Poseidon Press imprint of Simon and Schuster. Loosely based upon the orchestral suite
by Gustav Holst
, The Planets followed the lives of several fictional characters in the real town of Centralia, Pennsylvania
, which had been afflicted by an underground coal fire for several decades and housed few remaining residents. When one woman committed suicide
while skydiving, she sets into effect a chain reaction
of events, involving other residents of the burning town.
Picking up six years after The Planets concluded, The Constellations was published in 1994 by Random House
.
Her 1997 novel, Getting In, published by Warner Books, focused on four high school students who go on quests to get into college. The novel was optioned for film by Renny Harlin
and Geena Davis
, and Boylan was tapped to write the initial screenplay.
Boylan's stories have appeared in publications including Confrontation
, Florida Review
, Quarterly West
, Western Humanities Review, Writer's Digest
, Southwest Review
and How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity
.
Her eleventh book, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, follows the adventure of a young man who finds himself turning into a monster, and is sent to the Academy for Monsters to learn how to imitate "normal" humans and survive in the world.
Edward Albee
commented on her in 1988: -- "Boylan observes carefully, and with love. [Her] levitating wit is wisely tethered to a humane concern…. I often broke into laughter, and was now and again, struck with wonder."
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
The Village of Valley Forge is an unincorporated settlement located on the west side of Valley Forge National Historical Park at the confluence of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, United States. The remaining village is in Schuylkill Township of Chester County, but once...
) is an American author and professor at Colby College
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...
. She has openly discussed being a trans woman
Trans woman
A trans woman is a male-to-female transsexual or transgender person and the term trans woman is preferred by some individuals over various medical terms. Other non-medical terms include t-girl, tg-girl and ts-girl...
. Boylan's memoir, She's Not There, was published by Broadway Books
Broadway Books
Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a Division of Random House, Inc., released its first list in Fall, 1996. Broadway Books has since published many New York Times bestsellers in hardcover and paperback, including Elizabeth Edwards’ memoir Resilience, Bill O’Reilly’s memoir A...
in 2003
2003 in literature
The year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales*Atsuko Asano - No...
. Until 2001, she published under the name James Boylan. Boylan has been a frequent guest on a number of national television and radio programs, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
, The Today Show, Chez Laura, and All My Children
All My Children
All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...
. She was the subject of a documentary on CBS 48 Hours
48 Hours (TV series)
48 Hours is a documentary and news program broadcast on the CBS television network since January 19, 1988. The program originally presented documentaries of various events related to a particular subject occurring within a 48-hour period, and is credited as one of the first to air a "reality show"...
.
She is also an ongoing contributor to Conde Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler
Condé Nast Traveler is a US magazine published by Condé Nast. It has its origins in a mailing sent out by the Diners Club club beginning in 1953, listing locations that would take the card. It began taking advertising in 1955. In order to attract more advertisers, it became a full-fledged magazine,...
magazine; her most recent work there concerned the islands of Casco Bay, Maine, in the July 2005 issue, and a story about the Turks and Caicos in February 2006. Boylan has also contributed articles to GQ, People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, Allure
Allure (magazine)
Allure is the leading U.S. women’s beauty magazine, published monthly by Condé Nast in New York City. It was founded in 1991 by editor in chief Linda Wells, who has been at the helm of the magazine ever since. From its inception, the magazine has been widely recognized for its intelligent,...
, and Glamour
Glamour (magazine)
Glamour is a women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. Founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called Glamour of Hollywood....
. Her column, "There From Here", appears on Sundays in the papers of the Central Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
newspaper chain.
Early life and career
Boylan was born James Richard Boylan, Jr., son of J. Richard Boylan and his wife, Hildegarde.http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/27/style/deirdre-finney-to-wed-in-june.html She grew up in Newtown Square and Devon, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Wesleyan UniversityWesleyan University
Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...
in 1980. From there, she moved to New York, where she was the managing editor of American Bystander magazine, the short-lived American Punch founded by the first cast of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
and an ad-hoc group of New Yorker cartoonists and SCTV
Second City Television
Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
actors and writers. Upon the demise of American Bystander in 1982, Boylan became an editorial assistant at Viking/Penguin, working for the managing editor of the Viking Press
Viking Press
Viking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
. Boylan followed with a stint as the production editor of the fiction line at E.P. Dutton until 1985.
She married Deirdre Finney in Washington, D.C., in 1988.http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/27/style/deirdre-finney-to-wed-in-june.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/opinion/12boylan.html?em They have two children.
Professional career
In late 1986, Boylan began a master's program at the Writing Seminars of Johns Hopkins UniversityJohns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, where she worked with John Barth
John Barth
John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...
, Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, Doris Grumbach
Doris Grumbach
Doris Grumbach is an American novelist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. She taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, and was literary editor of the The New Republic for several years. Since 1985, she has had a bookstore, Wayward Books.-Life:Grumbach was born in New York...
and John Irwin.
Since 1988, Jenny Boylan has been a professor of creative writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
and American literature
American literature
American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...
at Colby College
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...
. Boylan was a visiting professor at University College Cork, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, in 1998-99. She was promoted to the rank of full Professor in May 2001, and was chosen by students as the Charles Walker Bassett "Professor of the Year" in 2000. At present, she is Director of Creative Writing at Colby. Jenny is also the Hoyer-Updike Distinguished Visiting Creative Writer for the fall of 2010 at Ursinus College.
Work as a writer
Boylan's first book, a collection of stories entitled Remind Me to Murder You Later, was published by Johns Hopkins University PressJohns Hopkins University Press
The Johns Hopkins University Press is the publishing division of the Johns Hopkins University. It was founded in 1878 and holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously running university press in the United States. The Press publishes books, journals, and electronic databases...
in 1988.
Her first novel, The Planets, was published by the Poseidon Press imprint of Simon and Schuster. Loosely based upon the orchestral suite
The Planets
The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...
by Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, The Planets followed the lives of several fictional characters in the real town of Centralia, Pennsylvania
Centralia, Pennsylvania
Centralia is a borough and ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005, 9 in 2007, and 10 in 2010, as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962...
, which had been afflicted by an underground coal fire for several decades and housed few remaining residents. When one woman committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
while skydiving, she sets into effect a chain reaction
Chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events....
of events, involving other residents of the burning town.
Picking up six years after The Planets concluded, The Constellations was published in 1994 by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
.
Her 1997 novel, Getting In, published by Warner Books, focused on four high school students who go on quests to get into college. The novel was optioned for film by Renny Harlin
Renny Harlin
Renny Harlin is a Finnish-American film director and producer. He is best known for Die Hard 2 , Cliffhanger , The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea...
and Geena Davis
Geena Davis
Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist...
, and Boylan was tapped to write the initial screenplay.
Boylan's stories have appeared in publications including Confrontation
Confrontation
Confrontation is a tactical fantasy miniature wargaming in which the combatants are represented by metal figures in 28 mm scale. For comparison purposes, the system's figures are slightly larger than those of Games Workshop or The Foundry....
, Florida Review
Florida Review
The Florida Review is a national, non-profit literary journal published twice annually by the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida. Its artistic mission is to publish the best poetry and prose written by the world’s most exciting emerging and established writers...
, Quarterly West
Quarterly West
Quarterly West is a prominent American literary magazine based at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Stories that have appeared in Quarterly West have been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, The Best American Short Stories and the O...
, Western Humanities Review, Writer's Digest
Writer's Digest
Writer's Digest is an American magazine devoted to both beginning and established writers, offering interviews, market listings, calls for manuscripts, and how-to articles....
, Southwest Review
Southwest Review
The Southwest Review is a literary journal published quarterly, based on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas, Texas. It is the third oldest literary quarterly in the United States of America . The current editor-in-chief is Willard Spiegelman.The journal was formerly known as the...
and How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity
How Beautiful the Ordinary
How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity is an anthology of LGBTQ short stories for young adults edited by American author Michael Cart. It was first published in 2009...
.
Her eleventh book, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, follows the adventure of a young man who finds himself turning into a monster, and is sent to the Academy for Monsters to learn how to imitate "normal" humans and survive in the world.
Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
commented on her in 1988: -- "Boylan observes carefully, and with love. [Her] levitating wit is wisely tethered to a humane concern…. I often broke into laughter, and was now and again, struck with wonder."
External links
- Jennifer Finney Boylan site via Colby College
- 2011 Interview on the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy Podcast