Jennifer Boulanger

Jennifer Boulanger's Forthcoming Memoir

A Song for Olaf: A Memoir of Sibling Love at the Dawn of the HIV-AIDS Pandemic

A Song for Olaf is the story of the uncommonly close bond between a brother and sister, a bond which endured the turbulence of the 1960s, the emergence of the HIV-AIDS pandemic and the illness and death that ultimately overwhelmed their lives. The history of the times is deftly woven into the narrative, revealing the characters’ experience within a culture of discrimination and societal negligence.

Capturing Olaf’s essence — his effervescent personality, his compassionate heart, his fun-loving spirit — in vivid detail, the author draws us in, enticing us to love Olaf as she did. She brings us Olaf in all his splendor, a man-child who was music in motion, apt to burst into spontaneous song or break into dance at the mere suggestion of tempo — the rhythmic pulse of a train, even the steady beat of a heart monitor beside his bed. She transforms what seems at first glance a small life into a life of great significance. With the promise of Olaf’s example, readers are uplifted and emerge with the hope that we might emulate his positivity and joy, even as we grieve for what might have been.

Pre-Order at any of the links below and stay tuned for live events, readings, and discussions. A Song For Olaf will be released June 1st, 2025.

Beginning a new career in one’s mid-sixties may not be commonplace or even very smart in the minds of some, but that was the choice I made. Rather than relaxing into an easy chair, at age 62 I became a writer, pursuing the activity that had always been my passion. For several years, I have worked almost exclusively on one book, titled A Song for Olaf: A Memoir of Sibling Love at the Dawn of the HIV-AIDS Pandemic

Prior to my foray into writing, I spent the entirety of my working life as an academician. Early in my career, I was a high school English teacher, a college instructor of English and ESL, a writing tutor and a Learning Center Director. In the 1990’s, I was encouraged to pursue administration, ultimately being selected an academic dean at Mohawk Valley Community College, overseeing courses and faculty for ESL, developmental education, college seminar, world languages, and education until my retirement in 2016.

In 2009, I earned a doctorate in Adult Education from the Teachers College at Columbia University. I hold a Master of Science degree in literacy from SUNY Cortland and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from SUNY Oswego. An advocate for Utica’s refugee population, I am a member of the Board of Directors for The Center (formerly the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees).

My most cherished roles are wife, mother, and grandmother. I live in Central New York with my husband, staying in close proximity to my two children, their partners, and six grandchildren, from whom I learn something new every day. I cherish the beauty and transcendence that comes with immersing oneself in good literature, theater, music and art.

Latest Features

Lives Are in Imminent Danger

“The occupants lay, resigned and silent, decaying in succession…One after another, ashen-faced men with skeletal bodies reclined, their bony knees pointing upward sharply under their blankets like stakes under a tent. Each had an IV pole and blood pack, wires and hoses attached to the backs of hands and wrists. Masking-up as instructed by a stern head nurse, I followed behind my brother’s stretcher into the transfusion center of the AIDS hospital ward, as we prepared for yet another round of platelets, so depleted was his count, his body ravaged by AIDS.”
—From A Song for Olaf by Jennifer Boulanger

On my better days, the scene described above seems a distant memory. Instead, I recall my beloved brother as he was pre-infection: vibrant, bright, theatrical, hilarious, exuberant. When we’ve lost someone who was deeply loved, memories of better times filter back as time marches forward, allowing us to put aside, however briefly, the traumatic recollections of prolonged, excruciating death. Yet, there are those instances when I am once again shaken to my core as the reality floods back — usually when I read of new cases or an AIDS death that could have been prevented. This is what occurred last week, when I first read about the children in Tanzania, their essential medications cut off by a Trump administration bound to slash and cut indiscriminately, life and death notwithstanding.

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The health dangers the feds now pose to us all

So begins my forthcoming book, “A Song for Olaf,” which describes my first glimpse of a transfusion center in a 1993 AIDS hospital ward.

Such a scene is one we hoped never to have to re-envision. Though we still mourn the loss of thousands of lovers, friends, brothers, sons and daughters, it is human nature to suppress certain memories out of self-preservation, the reality of their excruciating deaths too traumatic to revisit, their bodies wasting before our eyes while the government averted its glance.

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An abortion would have saved my friend’s life

Abortion. The word itself elicits a visceral reaction. It stirs the images, rhetoric, and experiences that have shaped our responses. It evokes fear, outrage, heartache, loss. It recalls physical pain and emotional torment. But it may also signify relief, healing and restoration.

I am particularly sensitive to the word at this moment because an abortion could have saved the life of a dear friend.

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The books we ban are the books we need

It was my older brother who turned me on to books.

His enthusiasm for “Huckleberry Finn” came first. Then it was “The Swiss Family Robinson,” “The Outsiders,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” “The Grapes of Wrath,” “1984,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “The Great Gatsby.”

When he burst into my bedroom one evening, madly waving his copy of “The Catcher in the Rye,” I finished it in one night, riveted by a voice that channeled my 13-year-old brain. Finally, I thought, an author had given us something real, a character who validated my growing despair. It was 1968; Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy had just been murdered, and I stood at the edge of adolescence. I felt understood.

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Women face the ultimate miscarriage of justice

In 1950s America, my mother was given the care she needed to survive her miscarriages. In 2022, in some parts of this country, my mother might be considered a criminal.

It has been three months since the Dobbs decision, yet the shock continues to reverberate. When my phone first lit up alerting me that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe vs. Wade, I sat in stunned silence, the lines on the screen in front of me blurring together. Even though I’d known the decision was coming, the news alerts dinging their way down my phone’s display were simply unfathomable. It took me a few beats to realize that no, the New York Times hadn’t gotten it wrong; nor had the Washington Post, CNN, the Daily News. It had happened.

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COVID, AIDS and trying to save ourselves

My brother died in 1994 of HIV/AIDS during what, for me, will always be the first pandemic. Now, in 2021, I wait, hoping no one in my family will die in the second.

The day before my brother died, my mother and I made our daily pilgrimage to sit at his bedside. We found a hospital social worker perched in Mom’s usual seat, holding his hand and speaking softly to him, although he seemed unaware of her. She picked up a tiny pink sponge, and, holding it by its toothpicked end, dipped it in a pitcher of water and gently pressed it against his lips. At the sound of our footsteps, she turned and motioned for Mom to take her place. Still in her winter coat and gloves, Mom sat erect and held the metal base of the chair with both hands, bracing herself.

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America’s teachers, thrown under the schoolbus

In the few years since my retirement, the anti-education rhetoric has gotten louder, more pervasive and noxious by degrees. This hateful language is meant to divert the attention of voters, to convince them that the care and dedication they witness every day in their children’s classes is a fraud. Looking for scapegoats upon whom to heap the blame for their own political impotence, right-wing conservatives have amassed a pile of perceived ills and targeted teachers as their newest scapegoat. We have been called “groomers,” “activists in disguise,” a “woke mob.” A relative suggested to me that colleges are simply factories designed to churn out the next generation of communists.

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For more information on guest articles, or “A Song For Olaf,” please contact Jennifer Boulanger at jennifer@jenniferboulanger.info or use the contact form below.

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