Boardman grew up in the Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Sewanee with honors degrees in English literature and psychology. At Sewanee, he was the editor, a columnist, and a cartoonist for the university newspaper (The Sewanee Purple), and he played wide receiver on the football team. Boardman earned an M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University, and also studied at St John's College, Oxford, and the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
