Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jennifer Finney Boylan was born on June 22nd, 1958 and is currently 68 years old. Jennifer Finney Boylan was born in Valley Forge, PA, USA. Boylan attended Wesleyan University where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree and Johns Hopkins University where she received a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is best known as an activist, professor, and author from the United States known for her writings on human rights, identity, and gender. She is a professor at Barnard College and has ties to the Sirenland and Bread Loaf writing conferences.

She is an author of books that include short story collections, novels, and memoirs. She is Not There, her memoir, is the first bestselling work published by an openly transgender citizen of the US.

As a public voice, Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of opinion pieces and essays in The New York Times. She has voiced her perspectives on societal change, gender identity, and transgender rights. She has also been in leadership roles in groups and boards advocating for better representation and rights of LGBTQ people.

Besides her writing, she has been active in organizations advocating for the rights of writers and for free speech. She sits on the PEN America board of trustees, which defends free expression and writers, in addition to being involved with the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD.

Jennifer Finney Boylan makes her home in Maine and New York alongside Deirdre, her wife, and their two children.

In her first fiction work, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, Jennifer Finney Boylan tells the story of Falcon Quinn, a thirteen-year-old, and his friends Megan and Max.

They believe they are living a normal life until they board Bus No. 13 and find themselves in the Academy for Monsters on Shadow Island. It is a school full of odd, beastly creatures who develop dark powers, as they come into puberty.

Falcon always believed himself to be very different, given that he had one eye black and the other a bright blue. Could that be what qualified him as a monster?

At the academy, they are supposed to hide their dark nature, and Quinn and his friends have to decide whether they will embrace their real selves or pretend.

Two years later, she published Falcon Quinn and the Crimson Vapor, in which he continues to follow the story of Falcon Quinn.

He is still trying to figure out his identity in a world where guardians and monsters are in continual conflict. He is half revelation and half monster as his mother is the queen of the Guardians, who are monster killers, while his father heads the Academy for Monsters.

He finds himself in no man's land as his friends cannot fully trust him. When things worsen, he heads to Guardian Island, where he is given a royal welcome, but he knows he still needs to try to bring peace between the guardians and monsters.

Boylan decided to write a memoir in 2020 with the publication of Good Boy, all about identity, love, and lessons she learned from canines.

She reflects on pivotal moments in her life from when she was a child all the way to adulthood. It is a work which expands on her essay about Indigo, her dog, which was published in the New York Times.

Every chapter shows how the compassion and loyalty of dogs can lead humans through acceptance, change, and loss, even as they help them find their true identity.

Jennifer Finney Boylan: Awards & Accolades

Boylan's book, Getting in won the Alex Awards, Best Book, in 1999.

Jennifer Finney Boylan: Lists & Other Mentions

• Mad Honey was the Good Morning America Book Club October 2022 Pick.

Related Authors

Fans of Jennifer Finney Boylan also enjoy these authors:

1. Kristin Hannah, author of: The Nightingale.
2. Matt Haig, author of The Midnight World Series.
3. Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower Series.
4. Fredrik Backman, author of: A Man Called Ove.
5. Shelby Van Pelt, author of: Remarkably Bright Creatures.

Jennifer Finney Boylan: F.A.Q