{"id":6396,"date":"2016-05-17T14:11:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T14:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lichen.csd.sc.edu\/sce\/entries\/boyd-blanche-mccrary\/"},"modified":"2022-07-19T19:04:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T19:04:29","slug":"boyd-blanche-mccrary","status":"publish","type":"entry","link":"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/boyd-blanche-mccrary\/","title":{"rendered":"Boyd, Blanche McCrary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Writer, educator. Boyd was born in Charleston on August 31, 1945, the daughter of Charles Fant McCrary and Mildred McDaniel. She attended Duke University, earned her B.A. from Pomona College in 1967, and received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, where she completed her M.A. in 1971. Boyd joined the faculty at Connecticut College in 1982. In 1988 she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship. Four years later she received the Lambda Literary Award for her novel <em>The Revolution of Little Girls, <\/em>and in 1993\u20131994 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.<\/p>\n<p>Boyd has published four novels: <em>Nerves <\/em>(1973), <em>Mourning the Death of Magic <\/em>(1977), <em>The Revolution of Little Girls <\/em>(1991), and <em>Terminal Velocity <\/em>(1997). The last two are part of a trilogy telling the story of Ellen Burns, a Charleston native who experiences an unsatisfying marriage, experiments with heavy drinking and drugs, and loses herself through various affairs and lifestyle changes. Part three of the trilogy is titled \u201cChildren of Nod.\u201d While each novel can be read on its own, Boyd explains that they are ultimately meant to be viewed together, \u201clike transparencies that alone show complete images, but reveal a unique perspective when combined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Boyd\u2019s fiction reveals a deep concern with the culture of the South. Much of her work addresses civil rights injustices or gender-identity issues within southern culture. <em>Mourning <\/em>is about three girls raised in the South during the 1950s and 1960s who are disillusioned with racism and class discrimination. Boyd\u2019s 1981 collection of essays, <em>The Redneck Way of Knowledge: Down-Home Tales, <\/em>features autobiographical accounts of the South Carolina world she knows well. One critic described Boyd\u2019s literary voice as \u201cwild, original, witty, imaginative . . . the direct, buckshot explosion of a lady red-neck turned narrator.\u201d Boyd is known for capturing both the tumult of a time period and a region\u2019s response to such social change.<\/p>\n<p>Boyd\u2019s work has won wide recognition. The <em>Atlanta Journal- Constitution <\/em>praised <em>The Revolution of Little Girls <\/em>as \u201cFunny . . . lively and wry, insightful and poignant. [A] psychedelic and unsettling journey into a Southern heart of darkness.\u201d A reviewer for <em>Publishers Weekly <\/em>said that Boyd has \u201cestablished a solid reputation as one of America\u2019s most unpredictable literary outlaws.\u201d Such attention to the more controversial issues within her writing is balanced with compliments on the craft of her fiction. Her work has also been published in periodicals such as <em>Esquire, New York Times Magazine, Premiere, <\/em>and <em>Voice Literary Supplement. <\/em>Divorced in 1971, Boyd created a life partnership with Leslie Hyman in 1999, and the couple has two children.<\/p>\n<p>Cole, Clarence Bard. \u201cThe Revelations of Blanche McCrary Boyd.\u201d <em>Christopher Street <\/em>14 (October 1991): 11.<\/p>\n<p>Gordon, Emily. \u201cTerminal Velocity.\u201d <em>The Nation <\/em>265 (September 1997): 32. Schuessler, Jennifer. \u201cBlanche McCrary Boyd: Writing Against Gravity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Publishers Weekly <\/em>244 ( June 1997): 64.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writer, educator. Boyd was born in Charleston on August 31, 1945, the daughter of Charles Fant McCrary and Mildred McDaniel. She attended Duke University, earned her B.A. from Pomona College in 1967, and received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, where she completed her M.A. in 1971. Boyd joined the faculty at Connecticut College [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":-1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-6396","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-b","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-civil-rights-era-1955-1969","ecms-education","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-literature","ecms-lowcountry","ecms-popular-culture","ecms-post-war-america-1946-1954","ecms-recreation-and-leisure","ecms-the-modern-state-1970-present","ecms-women","ecms-world-war-ii-1939-1945"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Boyd, Blanche McCrary - South Carolina Encyclopedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scencyclopedia.org\/sce\/entries\/boyd-blanche-mccrary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boyd, Blanche McCrary - South Carolina Encyclopedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Writer, educator. Boyd was born in Charleston on August 31, 1945, the daughter of Charles Fant McCrary and Mildred McDaniel. She attended Duke University, earned her B.A. from Pomona College in 1967, and received a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, where she completed her M.A. in 1971. 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