Gillian Schieber Flynn (born February 24, 1971) is an American author, screenwriter, and producer, best known for her thriller and mystery novels Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), and Gone Girl (2012), all of which have received critical acclaim. Her works have been translated into 40 languages, and by 2016, Gone Girl had sold over 15 million copies worldwide. Flynn wrote the screenplay for the 2014 film adaptation of Gone Girl, directed by David Fincher, for which she won the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for both the Writers Guild of America and the BAFTA awards, among others. She also wrote and produced the HBO limited series adaptation of Sharp Objects, for which she received nominations for the Primetime Emmy and the Writers Guild of America Award. Additionally, Flynn also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2018 film Widows alongside director Steve McQueen. Flynn served as showrunner, writer, and executive producer for Amazon Prime Video’s sci-fi thriller series Utopia (2020), which ran for one season. As of 2024, she is working on her fourth novel, to be published by Penguin Random House.

Early life and education

Flynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the Coleman Highlands neighborhood. Both of her parents were educators: her mother, Judith Ann (née Schieber), was a reading-comprehension professor, and her father, Edwin Matthew Flynn, taught film. Flynn has an older brother, Travis, who works as a railroad machinist. She has described herself as a “painfully shy” child, finding refuge in reading and writing. Her interest in storytelling was further cultivated by her father's love of horror films. As a young woman, Flynn worked jobs which required her to dress up as a giant “yogurt cone who wore a tuxedo.” She attended Bishop Miege High School, graduating in 1989, and went on to earn undergraduate degrees in English and journalism from the University of Kansas. After spending two years in California writing at a trade magazine for human resources professionals, Flynn moved to Chicago and attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where she completed a master’s degree in 1997. Initially aspiring to become a crime reporter, she ultimately chose to pursue a career in creative writing.

Career

After graduating from Northwestern, Flynn worked freelance briefly at U.S. News & World Report before joining Entertainment Weekly in 1998 as a feature writer, eventually becoming a television critic. She was laid off in December 2008. Flynn credits her years in journalism with helping to hone her writing skills, stating that journalism taught her the discipline of writing without waiting for inspiration. She said, “I could not have written a novel if I hadn’t been a journalist first, because it taught me that there’s no muse that’s going to come down and bestow upon you the mood to write. You just have to do it. I’m definitely not precious.” Flynn's portrayal of complex, morally ambiguous, and often unflattering female characters has drawn criticism from some critics, who have accused her of misogyny. However, Flynn identifies as a feminist, and has defended her choice to write female characters who defy conventional expectations of women as inherently nurturing or morally virtuous. She states, “the one thing that really frustrates me is this idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing.” To her, people will dismiss “trampy, vampy, bitchy types – but there’s still a big pushback against the idea that women can be just pragmatically evil, bad, and selfish.” In 2021, Flynn was appointed to lead a new book imprint – Gillian Flynn Books – for the independent publisher Zando.

Books

As of 2024, Flynn has published three novels and one short story. While working at Entertainment Weekly, she wrote her first novel, Sharp Objects (2006), a psychological thriller about a reporter investigating a series of murders in her hometown. Partly inspired by Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River, the book was shortlisted for several literary awards, including the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar for Best First Novel, and won the Crime Writers’ Association’s New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. Critically acclaimed, Sharp Objects was later adapted into a celebrated 2018 television miniseries starring Amy Adams. Flynn's second novel, Dark Places (2009), follows a woman who begins to question whether her incarcerated brother was truly responsible for the murder of their family during the Satanic panic era of the 1980s, when she was a child. The novel garnered highly positive reviews, though its 2015 feature film adaptation, starring Charlize Theron, was panned. Flynn made a cameo appearance in the film. As of 2024, Flynn is developing a limited series for HBO based on the book, where she will serve as co-creator, writer, and co-showrunner. Her third novel, Gone Girl (2012), centers on Nick Dunne, a small-town Missouri creative writing professor, and his wife Amy Elliott, who mysteriously disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary. Gone Girl received widespread acclaim from literary critics and topped The New York Times Bestseller list for eight weeks, becoming a major literary phenomenon with over two million copies sold by the end of 2012. Flynn adapted the novel into a successful 2014 film directed by David Fincher, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike. Flynn's short story The Grownup won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. Originally published under the title What Do You Do? in the 2014 anthology Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, it was later released as a standalone publication in 2015. The narrative follows a sex worker turned fake psychic, hired by a woman to cleanse her Victorian home, which is troubled by a deteriorating marriage and a disturbing stepson. The story was met with generally positive reviews.

Comic book short story

An avid reader of comic and graphic novels when she was a child, Flynn collaborated with illustrator Dave Gibbons and wrote a comic book short story called Masks. Part of the anthology series Dark Horse Presents, it was published by Dark Horse Comics in February 2015.

Television writing

Alongside Marti Noxon, Flynn co-wrote and served as an executive producer for HBO’s 2018 adaptation of Sharp Objects. In 2014, it was announced that Flynn would write the scripts for an HBO adaptation of the British series Utopia. Initially, the HBO series was to be directed and executive produced by David Fincher, but budget issues between Fincher and the network led to its cancellation in 2015. The project was later revived by Amazon, which ordered it to series with a 2020 release. Flynn wrote all eight episodes and served as the project's showrunner. Utopia premiered on Prime Video on September 25, 2020, drawing mixed reviews. The series was canceled in November 2020 after one season.

Film

For her Gone Girl screenplay, Flynn earned nominations for the Golden Globe, Writers Guild of America Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She also co-wrote, along with filmmaker Steve McQueen, the film adaptation of the ITV series Widows. Starring Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, and Liam Neeson, the film was released in November 2018 to high praise from movie critics.

Upcoming projects

Flynn is working on her fourth novel, which is set to be published by Penguin Random House. As discussed in the Chanel Connects podcast in June 2022, Flynn is currently writing the film adaptation for her short story The Grownup. She is also developing a limited series for HBO based on her novel Dark Places. Flynn retains the rights to the novel, with Brett Johnson and Guerrin Gardner joining her as co-showrunners, co-creators, and writers. Furthermore, she is collaborating with Tim Burton on a remake of Nathan H. Juran’s classic Attack of the 50 Foot Woman film for Warner Bros.

Personal life

Flynn married lawyer Brett Nolan in 2007, having met him during graduate school at Northwestern. Their relationship developed in their thirties. They have two children: their son, Flynn, born in 2010, and their daughter, Veronica, born in 2014. The family resides in Chicago.

Fiction

Non-fiction

Filmography

Film

TV

Awards and nominations

Literature

Film

TV