Category Archives: Boylan

Boylans on Oprah

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: August 10, 2009

The Oprah show that my family and I were on last spring re-runs today, Monday, I believe. You could check it out if you wanted. The good news is that we were among “Oprah’s Most Memorable Guests.” The bad news is that the other “memorable’ guests included lying Ted Haggard, the Texas Polygamist Wives, the [...]

Also posted in Oprah, family, television | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Writers’ workbench: On the ecstasy of the home stretch

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: August 7, 2009

So here I am, late summer, deep in the heart of the first draft of a new book. I’m in that euphoric, terrifying, mysterious frame of mind that arises when the end of the draft is almost in sight. I try to write about 1000 words a day, which translates to about four pages of [...]

Also posted in Falcon Quinn, books, writing | 2 Comments

The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: August 6, 2009

Yesterday, at a party for Maine Writers and Publishers, former Maine governor Angus King read the following memoir extract of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who started out the Civil War as a college professor and ended it as a general.  It was Chamberlain whom Grant selected to receive the surrender of the Confederate army after [...]

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Even Watchmen Get the Blues

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: March 16, 2009

So how about that big blue penis? According to a few of my children’s friends, the Watchmen movie gives new meaning to the phrase “weekend gross”. At issue is the character of Jon Osterman, a physicist who, after a radioactive mishap, becomes a glowing omniscient demigod named Dr. Manhattan, who performs most of his business [...]

Also posted in MPAA, baehr, blue, penis, transgender, watchmen | 1 Comment

The Day the Gazungas Died: True Story of Boylan, Buddy Holly, Don McLean, and Rick Russo

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: February 3, 2009

A true story about a party at Don McLean’s house this fall. I was there with a bunch of other Maine writers; Don and his wife were hosting a benefit for the Maine Writers & Publishers’ Alliance. I made smalltalk with our host and he was generous and pleasant in every way. At the end [...]

Also posted in bust, day the music died, holly, maclean, russo, transgender, transsexual | 3 Comments

Tim Kreider, Funniest Man Alive, presents "All Yours": Bush to Obama

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: January 23, 2009

Artist’s Statement by Timothy Kreider (The reduced image at left hardly does Tim’s work justice; and you surely should click here to see the piece in all its glory.) If all goes according to plan like it never does, this will be my last overtly political cartoon. I just got back from Inauguration last night. [...]

Also posted in George W. Bush, Obama, The Pain, cartoons, kreider | 1 Comment

MAN OF THE HOUR for January 4, 2009: BUSTER KEATON

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: January 4, 2009

Jenny Boylan’s MAN OF THE HOUR for January 4, 2009 is Buster Keaton, American actor and director, a.k.a. “The Great Stone Face.” Born October 4, 1895, his career lasted into the early 1960s, with a cameo in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” But his greatest films are the early silents of the 1920s, [...]

Also posted in Buster, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Keaton, Man of the Hour, There from Here, transgender | Leave a comment

  • 4576011240_572c819271

    Jenny Boylan's twelfth book, FALCON QUINN AND THE CRIMSON VAPOR, now on sale from HarperCollins!

  • Browse Inside Falcon Quinn!

  • PROFESSOR JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is the author of twelve books, including She's Not There: a Life in Two Genders, and I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted, both published by Random House. A novelist, memoirist, and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for civil rights. Jenny has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Live with Larry King, the Today Show, the Barbara Walters Special, NPR's Marketplace and Talk of the Nation; she has also been the subject of documentaries on CBS News' 48 Hours. and The History Channel. She is a regular contributor to the op/ed page of the New York Times and Conde Nast Traveler magazine. Since 1988, she has been Professor of English at Colby College in Maine; in 2010, she was the Hoyer-Updike Distinguished Writer at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She has also served on the judging committee of the Fulbright Scholars, administered by the U.S. Department of State.

    Her next published book will be STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU: Parenthood in Two Genders, coming from Crown/Random House in 2013, along with an updated, 10th anniversary edition of SHE'S NOT THERE.

    Check out the Twitter feed at JennyBoylan; or join Jennifer Finney Boylan on facebook.

  • Blog Archive

  • The Boylan Family, summer 2010

    DSC_0063 "You hang around our family, you learn all kinds of stuff."

  • Will Forte as Jennifer Finney Boylan on “Saturday Night Live”

    WiFo-Jennifer Finney Boylan-1

  • Jenny with Barbara Walters, December, 2008

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  • Jenny atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin

    2036947979_34bfbec240 August, 2002.

  • Surrounded

    boylanWith President Clinton and Maine's Governor John Baldacci, fall 2006.

  • JFB and Edward Albee

    edward_albee_by_fred_j_field-150x150

    Edward had been my teacher at Johns Hopkins in the winter of 1986. He visited Colby in fall, 2007. As we took our leave of each other, he kissed me on both cheeks and said, "We have done well. You and I."

  • Jenny and her teacher, the great John Barth

    Boylan_Barth

    Jack was my professor at JHU when I did my thesis, back in the day. After many years, I can now confidently say I finally understand his definition of plot. Which is, of course, "the perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a new and complexified equilibrium."