Kaye Gibbons

North Carolina · born or raisedBorn 1960

American novelist

Born in Nash County
Lived in Raleigh
Studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Studied at Rocky Mount High School
Studied at North Carolina State University

Quotations with a citation

The reason I write is because I love language. I never consciously think about writing as healing–that is journal work.

But if you write about beauty and lust and trust and death, those things are going to be universally appealing.

Regional writing stops short of dealing with those issues and instead behaves as though getting a date is what matters. It treats a family reunion like it’s the potato salad that is important instead of ancient family conflicts.

I feel like, with the South, I just happened to have been born here. But if I had been born in Poughkeepsie, or Ames, Iowa, I would have been a writer too. I think I was just born with the urge.

Ellen’s task is what mine was, which was to learn how to be comfortable inside. That’s what you carry around with you.