On Monday, October 13, author Alex Myers addressed the St. Mark’s community on gender roles and his historical novel, Revolutionary. The event was co-sponsored by the St. Mark’s Office of Community and Equity Affairs and the English Department, recognizing that this week is Ally Week and this month is LGBTQ month.
Born and raised in Paris, ME, Alex was raised as a girl (Alice) and left Maine to attend boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy. At Exeter, Alex came out as transgender, returning his senior year as a man after attending for three years as a woman, and was the first transgender student in that Academy’s history. After Exeter, he earned his bachelor’s at Harvard University, studying Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Myers was also the first openly transgender student at Harvard and worked to change the University’s nondiscrimination clause to include gender identity. Subsequent to earning a master’s degree in religion at Brown, he has pursued a career in teaching English at secondary schools. He completed his Master’s of Fine Arts in fiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where he began his work on the novel, Revolutionary.
Revolutionary tells the true story of Deborah Samson. In 1782, during the final clashes of the Revolutionary War, one of the most valiant and beloved American soldiers was, secretly, a woman. When Deborah Samson disguised herself as a man and joined the Continental Army, she wasn’t just fighting for America’s independence—she was fighting for her own.
Revolutionary is Alex Myers’s richly imagined and meticulously researched debut novel, brings the true story of Deborah’s struggle against a rigid colonial society back to life—and with it the courage, hope, fear, and heartbreak that shaped her journey through a country’s violent birth. Her long and ultimately successful public campaign for a military pension bridged gender differences in asserting the sense of entitlement felt by all of the veterans who had fought for their country.
Alex Myers taught English for over a decade at independent schools, including St. George’s, where he was Chair of the English Department. Currently, he is a Lannan Associate at Georgetown University’s Center for Poetics and Social Practices, and he also teaches writing at American University’s Kogod School of Business.
After speaking in the Putnam Family Arts Center’s Class of 1945 Hall, Mr. Myers signed copies of his book for St. Mark’s students and faculty in the Class of 1951 lobby.
Alex Myers also took the time to visit St. Mark’s English classes to talk about the process of writing.