My Books
Not Your Founding Father: How a NonBinary Minster Became America’s Most Radical Revolutionary
Not Your Founding Father tells the true story of Universal Friend, a non-binary minister of the American Revolution, whose sect, founded in 1776, attracted hundreds of followers from across social classes, ethnicities, race, and gender. Friend was the first messianic prophet in America; the first American born a woman to found a religious movement; and the only publicly proclaimed non-binary religious leader in American history.
Born Jemima Wilkinson in 1757, Friend began gathering followers throughout the Northeastern colonies throughout the years of the American Revolution. Following the war, Friend moved the sect to the western frontier of New York State and established the only community in the United States which actually lived up to the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence, giving all its members guarantees of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Friend’s followers were supported spiritually and economically, and provided with freedoms and opportunities to control their own lives, regardless of race, gender, or ethnicity. As described by a follower, Universal Friend was “a saint in homespun whose hands rocked the cradle of the republic.”
But into every Eden comes a snake, and the minister was persecuted, harassed, and subjected to unfounded accusations of blasphemy, murder, insanity, and sexual deviance. Nevertheless, Friend persisted. The communities Universal Friend led and fought for, offered to Americans then — and now — a blueprint of how our country could — and can — live up to the ideals of liberty, justice, and equality for which the revolution was fought over 250 years ago.
Jennifer Finney Boylan, president of PEN America, author, and activist, has already offered praises of Not Your Found Father: “Nina Sankovitch’s extraordinary book considers the mysteries of faith as well as the burdens of being all-too-human. Today, when so many of us wonder where we fit in, it is breathtaking to be reminded that — just as the Universal Friend declared in 1776 — ‘there is room’ on earth for every soul. Not Your Founding Father is haunting, heartbreaking, and wise.”
American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution
American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution explores for the first time the intimate connections and intertwined lives of John Hancock, John Adams, Josiah Quincy Junior, Abigail Smith Adams, and Dorothy Quincy Hancock.
“Sankovitch has woven a compelling, potent chronicle of members of three principal American families that will be valued by readers of American history at all levels,” from Library Journal, in its starred review.
“Best-selling author Nina Sankovitch has given us a magnificent, solid work on the life, times and people who helped guide the American colonies to freedom from English rule…. puts her readers in the hearts and minds of participants and, more important, offers us fresh perspective of the events leading to revolution here,” wrote Jack Shea of The Martha’s Vineyard Times.
Publishers Weekly also praised American Rebels: “Historian Sankovitch (The Lowells of Massachusetts) explores the family connections and revolutionary politics shared by John Hancock, John and Abigail Adams, and Josiah Quincy Jr., in this richly detailed and fluidly written account…Revolutionary War buffs will savor this thoughtful addition to popular histories of the period.”
Booklist recommended American Rebels: “Sankovitch lays out the evolution of eighteenth-century political thought and shows how it arose within these families and their interconnections. Students of American Revolution history will find a fresh perspective here.”
Goodreads named American Rebels one of “the most highly anticipated new and upcoming nonfiction… books readers can’t wait to crack open…”
American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution won the 2021 New England Society in the City of New York Book Award for Best Historical Nonfiction.
The Lowells of Massachusetts: An American Family
The Lowells of Massachusetts tells the story of the Lowell family from Percival Lowle’s arrival in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639 through the blazing of Amy Lowell’s poetic glory in the early twentieth century.
Critics hailed The Lowells of Massachusetts as “[A] stirring saga …Vivid and intimate, Ms. Sankovitch’s account entertains us with Puritans and preachers, Tories and rebels, abolitionists and industrialists, lecturers and poets … Ms. Sankovitch has made a compelling contribution to Massachusetts and American History.” ( The Wall Street Journal)
“Meet American’s Most Extraordinary Family: the Lowells of Massachusetts,” said The Washington Post: “Sankovitch has searched out these letters to write the powerful story of one of America’s most extraordinary families, a family that helped shape the course of American history in dramatic and decisive ways…By the final pages of this volume, one feels deeply attached to the individual Lowells, while also exhilarated at having experienced this grand sweep of American history.“
“[Sankovitch’s] skillful blending of context and detail makes the vicissitudes of one family emblematic of a nation’s,” proclaimed The New Yorker.
The Connecticut Post praised it for reading “like a fine novel. You might be reminded of one of those deep digs into history and storytelling that James Michener used to do in his novels “Hawaii” and “Chesapeake.”
“A fascinating collective biography … paying tribute to both worthy individuals and everyone else in this prominent, complicated family,” said Booklist.
The Library Journal also recommended The Lowells of Massachusetts: “Sankovitch’s use of interpretative passages breathe color into descriptions of home life of various Lowells, adding an artistic dimension to the account. Her ability to switch the focus among the family members while keeping readers fully engaged in the narrative is a significant achievement.”
“A sturdy, busy multibiography of an eminent American family… Exhaustive work by a clear admirer and dogged researcher,” said Kirkus Reviews.
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a memoir of the year I spent reading a book a day for one year. It was hailed as “an outstanding debut” by Kirkus Reviews, designated a “book to read now” by Oprah, and praised by The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, Bookpage, Publishers’s Weekly, and Booklist.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Celebrating the Joys of Letter Writing
Signed, Sealed, Delivered is a combination of history and memoir, in which I explore the history of letter-writing. Oprah hailed Signed, Sealed, Delivered as a book “every joy-seeking woman needs to read” and the book also received celebratory reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Review, Library Journal, and Booklist. I was invited to give a TEDx talk on the importance of letter writing, in which I presented my own obsession with writing, reading, and saving letters.
