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'{{short description|American novelist}} '''Blanche McCrary Boyd''' (born August 31, 1945)<ref>"Blanche M Boyd" in the U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1</ref> is an American author. She was the Roman and Tatiana Weller Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at [[Connecticut College]] for 40+ years and is now retired. She currently writes a substack at blanche.substack.com. == Early life and education == Blanche McCrary Boyd was born in [[Charleston, South Carolina]], to Charles Fant McCrary and Mildred McDaniel.<ref>{{Cite web|last=White|first=Amy L.|date=21 July 2016|title=Boyd, Blanche McCrary|url=http://scdev.com/sce/entries/boyd-blanche-mccrary/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-10-22|website=South Carolina Encyclopedia|language=en-US}}</ref> She attributes growing up in South Carolina as the source of her "redneck roots."<ref name=":0" /> Boyd started college at [[Duke University]], though she left after getting a C+ in her first English class and being asked to leave because she was "drunk all the time".<ref name=":1" /> She married a man who "wouldn't put up with my drinking," and transferred to [[Pomona College]] where she graduated in 1967. Immediately after graduating from Pomona, Boyd was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University, and in 1971 she received an M.A. in English at Stanford. During these years Boyd started taking drugs, lapsed into alcoholism, and soon separated from her husband. In 1971 she declared herself a lesbian feminist and moved to Vermont and then to New York City. ==Career== Boyd's first novel, ''Nerves,'' was published in 1973 by the feminist press Daughters Inc. at the same time as Rita Mae Brown's iconic Rubyfruit Jungle, a novel which Boyd helped typeset. Her second novel, ''Mourning the Death of Magic,'' was published in 1977 by Macmillan.<ref name=":1" /> Boyd has since criticized these two novels as "“talented but not good." After ''Mourning the Death of Magic,'' Boyd had a brief stint as a rock and roll critic, a situation she described as useful but hilarious since "I knew hardly anything about music."<ref name=":1" />She was soon writing regularly for the Village Voice and for the VLS, the Voice Literary Supplement. Six of her essays ran on the cover of the Voice, and a collection named ''The Redneck Way of Knowledge'' was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1982. Boyd quit drinking in 1981 and joined Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1982 she began teaching at Connectict College, where she remained until her retirement in 2022. Her students have included Ann Napolitano, David Grann, Jazmine Hughes, Lee Eisenberg, Lauren Morrow, Arecelis Girmay, Hannah Tinti, and many other writers. In 1991, she published ''The Revolution of Little Girls'' to great acclaim. It won the Lambda Award for Lesbian fiction as well as the [[Ferro-Grumley Award|Ferro-Grumley]] award.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Ferro–Grumley Awards|url=https://publishingtriangle.org/awards/ferro-grumley-awards/|access-date=2020-10-22|website=The Publishing Triangle|language=en-US}}</ref> One chapter was published in Best American Short Stories 1989. ''Terminal Velocity,'' the follow-up to ''The Revolution of Little Girls,'' was published in 1997, and it was called “A rollicking, kaleidoscopic trip through the drug-tinged lesbian-feminist counter-culture of the 1970s”.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Knopf|first=Alfred A.|date=|title=Terminal Velocity|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-43008-7|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190603014847/https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-43008-7 |archive-date=2019-06-03 |access-date=2020-10-22|website=Publishers Weekly}}</ref> Boyd won a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] in 1993–1994, a [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Fiction Fellowship in 1988,{{r|scencyc}} a Creative Writing Fellowship from the South Carolina Arts Commission in 1982–1983{{r|conles}} and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing from [[Stanford University]] in 1967–1968.{{r|scencyc}} She won the [[Lambda Literary Award]]{{r|scencyc}} in 1982 and was nominated again in 1997.{{r|lambda97}} In 2018, she published the third installment in the ''Revolution of Little Girls'' trilogy, ''Tomb of the Unknown Racist.'' In 2019 she was named as a finalist for the [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction]] for this novel.{{r|faulkner}} Boyd now acts as the Roman and Tatiana Weller Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at [[Connecticut College]]. == Personal life == After leaving her husband, Boyd moved to [[Vermont]] to protest the [[Vietnam War]] and live on a commune. She continued drinking and doing drugs until eventually she got arrested. She soon left Vermont and moved to [[New York City|New York.]] After her stint as a rock and roll critic, Boyd moved briefly back to [[South Carolina]], where she continued to struggle with drug and alcohol until 1980, when she had what she describes as "a moment of clarity" after watching a friend shoot herself.<ref name=":1" /> Boyd quite drinking and drugs in 1981 and has remained clean and sober. Boyd met a woman in the late 90s that she "didn't screw things up with".<ref name=":1" /> They got married in [[Connecticut]] in 2009<ref>“Blanche Boyd” in the Connecticut, Marriage Index, 1959-2012.</ref> and have twins who are now grown.<ref name=":1" /> Boyd and her wife divide their time between Connecticut and the island of Vieques, off the coast of Puerto Rico. ==Works== Novels: *''Nerves'' (Daughters Pub. Co., 1973) *''Mourning the Death of Magic'' (Macmillan, 1977){{r|mourning}} *''The Revolution of Little Girls'' (Vintage, 1991){{r|revolution}} *''Terminal Velocity'' (Vintage, 1997){{r|terminal}} *''Tomb of the Unknown Racist: A novel'' (Counterpoint, 2018){{r|tomb}} Essays: * ''The Redneck Way of Knowledge: Down-home Tales'' (Vintage, 1978; 2nd ed., 1994){{r|redneck}} ==References== {{reflist|refs= <ref name="conles">{{cite book|title=Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook|editor1-first=Sandra|editor1-last=Pollack|editor2-first=Denise D.|editor2-last=Knight|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1993|isbn=9780313282157|page=[https://archive.org/details/contemporarylesb0000unse/page/75 75]|first=Madeline R.|last=Moore|contribution=Blanche McCrary Boyd (1945–)|url=https://archive.org/details/contemporarylesb0000unse/page/75}}</ref> <ref name="faulkner">{{cite news|url=https://www.apnews.com/0f2310df6d2e4a75a8ef0bf87191e949|title=Conn College English professor is finalist for prestigious award|first=Rick|last=Koster|date=March 7, 2019|publisher=[[Associated Press]]}}</ref> <ref name="scencyc">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/boyd-blanche-mccrary/ |title=Boyd, Blanche McCrary |last=White |first=Amy L. |encyclopedia=South Carolina Encyclopedia |date=July 21, 2016 |access-date=May 12, 2019}}</ref> <ref name="fga">{{cite web|url=http://www.publishingtriangle.org/awards.asp|title=The Publishing Triangle Awards|publisher=The Publishing Triangle: the association for lesbians and gay men in publishing|accessdate=June 2, 2019}}</ref> <ref name="lambda97">{{cite web|url=https://www.fictiondb.com/awards/1997~lambda-literary-award~148.htm|title=1997 Lambda Literary Award|work=FictionDB|accessdate=June 2, 2019}}</ref> <ref name="mourning">Reviews of ''Mourning the Death of Magic'': *{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/30/archives/books-of-the-times-cause-and-effect-in-fiction.html|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|title=Books of the Times|date=August 30, 1977|first=Anatole|last=Broyard}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Kirkus Reviews|title=Review|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/blanche-mccrary-boyd-2/mourning-the-death-of-magic/|date=September 1977}}</ref> <ref name="redneck">Reviews of ''The Redneck Way of Knowledge'': *{{cite journal|last=Wheaton|first=Liz|title=Overrated Accuracy|journal=Southern Exposure|volume=11|date=January–February 1983|pages=68–69}} *{{cite journal|last=Houston|first=James D.|date=Spring 1983|issue=1|journal=Western American Literature|jstor=43018792|pages=72–73|title=none|volume=18}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Kirkus Reviews|title=Review|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/blanche-mccrary-boyd-2/the-redneck-way-of-knowledge-downhome-tales/|date=May 1982}}</ref> <ref name="revolution">Reviews of ''The Revolution of Little Girls'': *{{cite news|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/05/23/the-tarzan-in-jane/ad2564ac-3d77-4413-a50d-2f8781f493f1/|title=The Tarzan in Jane|first=Leigh Allison|last=Wilson|date=May 23, 1991}} *{{cite news|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-24-vw-851-story.html|title=Dysfunctional Family's True and Funny Story|first=Carolyn|last=See|date=June 24, 1991}} *{{cite journal|last=Loewenstein|first=Andrea Freud|date=December 1991|doi=10.2307/4021094|issue=3|journal=The Women's Review of Books|jstor=4021094|page=14|title=Pieces of a Puzzle|volume=9}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Kirkus Reviews|title=Review|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/blanche-mccrary-boyd/the-revolution-of-little-girls/|date=May 1991}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Publishers Weekly|title=Review|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-40090-5}}</ref> <ref name="terminal">Reviews of ''Terminal Velocity'': *{{cite news|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/08/24/bib/970824.rv112121.html|title=Lesbians in Wonderland|first=Andrea|last=Barnet|date=August 24, 1997}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Kirkus Reviews|title=Review|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/blanche-mccrary-boyd/terminal-velocity/|date=June 1997}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Publishers Weekly|title=Review|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-679-43008-7}}</ref> <ref name="tomb">Reviews of ''Tomb of the Unknown Racist'': *{{cite magazine|magazine=Kirkus Reviews|title=Review|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/blanche-mccrary-boyd/tomb-of-the-unknown-racist/|date=May 2018}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Publishers Weekly|title=Review|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-64009-067-5}} *{{cite magazine|magazine=Gay & Lesbian Review|url=https://glreview.org/article/catching-catfish-barehanded/|title=Catching Catfish Barehanded|first=Sarah|last=Sarai|date=October 29, 2018}} *{{cite web|publisher=[[Lambda Literary Foundation]]|title=Review|url=https://www.lambdaliterary.org/reviews/fiction/05/06/tomb-of-the-unknown-racis-by-blanche-mccrary/|first=July|last=Westhale|date=May 6, 2018}}</ref> <ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Blanche McCrary Boyd|url=https://www.blanchemccraryboyd.com/about-blanche|access-date=2020-10-22|website=Blanche McCrary Boyd|language=en-US}}</ref> <ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Emily|first=Silber|date=2012-04-10|title=From Addiction to Fiction: A look into the life of Professor Blanche Boyd – The College Voice|url=http://thecollegevoice.org/2012/04/10/from-addiction-to-fiction-a-look-into-the-life-of-professor-blanche-boyd/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419010941/http://thecollegevoice.org:80/2012/04/10/from-addiction-to-fiction-a-look-into-the-life-of-professor-blanche-boyd/ |archive-date=2012-04-19 |access-date=2020-10-22|website=The College Voice|language=en-US}}</ref> }} ==Further reading== *{{cite book|title=The Gay & Lesbian Literary Companion|first=Christa|last=Brelin|publisher=Visible Ink Press|year=1995|isbn=9780787600334|contribution=Blanche McCrary Boyd|pages=[https://archive.org/details/gaylesbianlitera00shar/page/55 55ff]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/gaylesbianlitera00shar/page/55}} *{{cite news|url=https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1992-08-16-9201160145-story.html|newspaper=[[Sun-Sentinel]]|title=Lesbian writer enjoying success of comic novel|date=August 16, 1992|first=Chauncey|last=Mabe}} *Blanche Boyd Papers, 1957-1984 at Duke University Libraries *[https://www.blanchemccraryboyd.com/ Website of Blanche McCrary Boyd] *Substack at Blanche.substack.com *[https://www.conncoll.edu/directories/faculty-profiles/blanche-boyd/ Faculty profile at Connecticut College] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190321090148/https://www.conncoll.edu/directories/faculty-profiles/blanche-boyd/ |date=2019-03-21 }} {{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Blanche Mccrary}} [[Category:1945 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:20th-century American novelists]] [[Category:American women novelists]] [[Category:American lesbian writers]] [[Category:Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction winners]] [[Category:20th-century American women writers]] [[Category:21st-century American women writers]] [[Category:Novelists from South Carolina]] [[Category:LGBT people from South Carolina]] [[Category:Pomona College alumni]] [[Category:American LGBT novelists]] [[Category:Stanford University alumni]] [[Category:Connecticut College faculty]] [[Category:Writers from Charleston, South Carolina]] [[Category:Lesbian academics]] [[Category:Lesbian novelists]] [[Category:American women academics]] [[Category:20th-century American LGBT people]] [[Category:21st-century American LGBT people]]'