Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kay Boyle studied architecture at Parson's School of Fine and Applied Arts in New York and elsewhere, took courses at Columbia, and studied violin at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She lived mostly in France from 1923 to 1941, where she was well known among the American expatriate community. Back in the U.S., she was active in progressive movements for decades and was blacklisted during the McCarthy period. She published ten novels, half a dozen short novels and numerous short story collections, and three children's books, along with essays and several volumes of poetry.