Career
Born in Dublin, Boylan began her career as a journalist at the (now defunct) Irish Press. Later in her career she edited the glossy magazine Image, before largely giving up journalism to focus on a career as an author The latter work is a continuation of an 20-page fragment written by Charlotte Brontë before her death.
Boylan"s short stories are collected in A Nail on the Head (1983), Concerning Virgins (1990) and That Bad Woman (1995).
The film Making Waves, based on her short story "Some Ladies on a Tour", was nominated for an Oscar in 1988. Her non-fiction includes The Agony and the Ego (1994) and The Literary Companion to Cats (1994).
She wrote introductions to the novels of Kate O"Brien and Molly Keane and adapted Molly Keane"s novel Good Behaviour as the classic serial for British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 (2004). Boylan"s work has been translated as far afield as Russia and Hong Kong.
She died after a lengthy struggle with ovarian cancer, aged 58.
