KINGSTON, R.I. -- October 20, 2003 -- Jennifer Finney Boylan, novelist, screenwriter, and professor whose exuberant memoir of a man named James who became a woman named Jenny, will speak at the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus Monday, Oct. 27 at 4 p.m. Her talk, free and open to the public, will be held in Room 271 of the Chafee Social Science Center.
Boylan’s ninth book, She’s Not There A Life in Two Genders, published this July by Doubleday/Broadway, a division of Random House. She has recently appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, the Today Show and other national television program. Reviews of the book are slated to appear in Vanity Fair, Newsweek, The Washington Post and others.
In the book, Boylan writes the story of a person changing genders. By turns funny, deeply moving, and painfully honest, She’s Not There explores the territory that lies between men and women and examines changing friendships, and the redeeming power of love.
As James Finney Boylan, she wrote the critically praised novels The Constellations, The Planets, and Getting In, as well as a collection of short stories. Her fiction has been described by Edward Albee as "observed carefully and with love, and her levitating wit is wisely tethered to a humane concern."
Boylan is co-chair of the English Department at Colby College, where she was voted Professor of the Year in 2000. Her visit to URI is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology.
