Gillian Flynn facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gillian Flynn
Gillian Flynn at the New York Film Festival in 2014
Born	(1971-02-24) February 24, 1971 (age 54) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Occupation	Author screenwriter showrunner producer
Alma mater	University of Kansas (BFA) Northwestern University (MSJ)
Period	2007–present
Genre	Fiction thriller mystery
Notable works	Gone Girl Sharp Objects
Spouse	Brett Nolan ​ (m. 2007)​
Children	2

Gillian Flynn (born February 24, 1971) is an American author, screenwriter, and producer. She is famous for her exciting thriller and mystery novels. Her most well-known books are Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), and Gone Girl (2012). All of these books have been highly praised.

Her stories have been translated into 40 different languages. By 2016, her novel Gone Girl had sold over 15 million copies around the world.

Gillian Flynn wrote the movie script for the 2014 film Gone Girl. The film was directed by David Fincher. For her work, she won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award. She was also nominated for other important awards, like the Writers Guild of America and BAFTA awards.

She also wrote and produced the HBO TV series based on her book Sharp Objects. For this, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy award. Flynn also helped write the script for the 2018 movie Widows. She worked on this film with director Steve McQueen.

Flynn was the main writer and producer for the Amazon Prime Video sci-fi thriller series Utopia (2020). This show ran for one season. As of 2024, she is working on her fourth novel. It will be published by Penguin Random House.

Early Life and Education

Gillian Flynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up in the Coleman Highlands neighborhood of Kansas City. Both of her parents were college professors. Her mother taught reading, and her father taught film. She has an older brother named Travis.

When she was young, Flynn was very shy. She found comfort and fun in reading and writing. Her father often took her to watch horror movies, which she enjoyed.

Flynn went to Bishop Miege High School and finished in 1989. As a young person, she had many unusual jobs. One time, she even had to dress up as a giant "yogurt cone who wore a tuxedo"!

She studied at the University of Kansas. There, she earned degrees in English and journalism. After college, she worked for two years in California, writing for a magazine. Then, she moved to Chicago. She earned a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1997. Flynn first wanted to be a police reporter. However, she found she was not good at it. So, she decided to focus on her own creative writing instead.

Career Highlights

After finishing her master's degree, Flynn worked as a freelance writer for a short time. She then joined Entertainment Weekly magazine in 1998. She started as a feature writer and later became a television critic. She left the magazine in December 2008.

Flynn says her time in journalism helped her become a better writer. She learned that she didn't need to wait for inspiration to write. She simply had to do it. She believes this discipline was very important for her to write novels.

Some people have criticized Flynn's writing. They say she writes female characters who are complicated and not always nice. However, Flynn says she is a feminist. She believes it's important to show women as real people. She wants to show that women can be strong, flawed, and even selfish, just like anyone else. She doesn't think women always have to be "innately good" or "nurturing" in stories.

In 2021, Gillian Flynn was chosen to lead a new book publishing company called Gillian Flynn Books. It is part of the independent publisher Zando.

Her Books

As of 2024, Gillian Flynn has written three novels and one short story.

While working at Entertainment Weekly, she wrote her first novel, Sharp Objects (2006). This book is a psychological thriller. It's about a reporter who goes back to her hometown to investigate murders. The book was inspired a little by Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. Sharp Objects was nominated for several awards. It won the Crime Writers’ Association’s New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Dagger awards. The book was very popular. Later, it was made into a successful TV miniseries in 2018, starring Amy Adams.

Flynn's second novel, Dark Places (2009), tells the story of a woman. She starts to wonder if her brother, who is in prison, really killed their family when she was a child. The book received very good reviews. However, the movie version from 2015, starring Charlize Theron, was not as popular. Flynn had a small acting part in the movie. As of 2024, Flynn is working on a new TV series for HBO based on Dark Places. She will help create and write the show.

Her third novel, Gone Girl (2012), is about a man named Nick Dunne and his wife Amy. Amy mysteriously disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary. Gone Girl was highly praised by critics. It was a huge success, staying at the top of The New York Times Bestseller list for eight weeks. Over two million copies were sold by the end of 2012. Flynn turned her novel into a successful movie in 2014. It was directed by David Fincher and starred Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike.

Flynn's short story The Grownup won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. It was first published in 2014 in a collection called Rogues. Later, it was released as its own book in 2015. The story was generally well-received.

Comic Book Story

Gillian Flynn loved reading comic books and graphic novels when she was a child. She worked with artist Dave Gibbons to write a comic book short story called Masks. This story was part of the Dark Horse Presents series. It was published by Dark Horse Comics in February 2015.

TV and Film Work

Gillian Flynn has also written for television and movies.

She co-wrote and was a producer for the HBO TV show based on her novel Sharp Objects in 2018. She worked with Marti Noxon on this project.

In 2014, it was announced that Flynn would write scripts for an HBO show based on the British series Utopia. This project was first planned with director David Fincher. But it was canceled in 2015 due to budget problems. Later, Amazon brought the project back. Flynn wrote all eight episodes and was the main writer and producer for the show. Utopia started on Prime Video in September 2020. The show received mixed reviews and was canceled after one season in November 2020.

For her Gone Girl movie script, Flynn was nominated for several awards. These included the Golden Globe, Writers Guild of America Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

She also helped write the movie Widows with filmmaker Steve McQueen. This film was based on an ITV series. It starred famous actors like Viola Davis and Liam Neeson. The movie was released in November 2018 and was highly praised by critics.

What's Next for Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn is currently writing her fourth novel. It will be published by Penguin Random House. She is also working on turning her short story The Grownup into a movie script.

She is also developing a new TV series for HBO based on her novel Dark Places. Flynn will be a co-creator, writer, and co-showrunner for this series. In addition, she is working with director Tim Burton on a new version of the classic movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman for Warner Bros.

Personal Life

Gillian Flynn married lawyer Brett Nolan in 2007. They met while they were both in graduate school. They have two children: a son named Flynn, born in 2010, and a daughter named Veronica, born in 2014. The family lives in Chicago.

Film and TV Projects

Film

TV

Awards and Nominations

Literature Awards

Film Awards

TV Awards

See also

In Spanish: Gillian Flynn para niños