Jennifer Finney Boylan

This information is accurate as of the fellowship year indicated for each fellow.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of 18 books and the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. She also is a member of the faculty of the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sirenland Writers Conference, in Positano, Italy. Boylan serves on the board of trustees of PEN America, the nonprofit advocating for authors, readers, and freedom of expression. From 2011 to 2018, she served on the GLAAD board of directors, which she cochaired from 2013 to 2017, and she has also been a member of the board of trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. 

At Radcliffe, Boylan will write a novel, inspired by Amelia Earhart and told in the voices of three women at three moments in the history of American feminism, which she will research at the Schlesinger Library.

Boylan’s most recent book is the memoir Good Boy: My Life in 7 Dogs (Celadon Books, 2020). Her next book project is the novel Mad Honey (Ballantine Books, 2022), coauthored with Jodi Picoult. Her memoir She’s Not There: a Life in Two Genders (Broadway Books, 2003) was the first best-selling work by a transgender American. A novelist, memoirist, and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for human rights. For many years, Boylan was a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and she has appeared on Fresh Air, Larry King Live twice, Marketplace, Talk of the Nation, The Barbara Walters Special, The Oprah Winfrey Show on four occasions, and Today.

Opinion: To Understand Biological Sex, Look at the Brain, Not the Body (Washington Post, 5/1/23)

Author Jennifer Boylan Discusses Experience with Gender Transition at Harvard Radcliffe Lecture (Harvard Crimson, 2/22/23)

Opinion: A Prayer for the Longest Night of the Year (Washington Post, 12/21/22)

Opinion: Is Being Transgender a Medical Condition? (Washington Post, 9/13/22)