Carolina QuotesVermont sort of demands humility and equanimity. No one really cares if you’re fancy or high achieving, and if you lead with that energy you will learn quickly that it’s unwelcome. There’s a coldness here that shocked me for years—but I’ve learned to appreciate the authenticity. No one’s faking much of anything; there’s no lipstick on the pigs here.
Megan Mayhew Bergman Connected to the Carolinas
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as quoted by Nadeem Kharputly in
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“Vermont sort of demands humility and equanimity. No one real…” Megan Mayhew Bergman. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-E8F5BBC8C0. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/e8f5bbc8c0
More from Megan Mayhew Bergman
My good habits: I don’t really watch television. I read a lot. I teach, which makes me think about what makes good work. I run, which helps me work out plot points and combat nerves about a first book. I parent, which is radically humbling and physical and informs my characterizations. I always have a short story in progress. I try not to read rejection letters twice.
... crying at your own work is like laughing at your own joke — it's just not done.
Allan Gurganus and I grew up, thirty years apart, in the small town of Rocky Mount, situated on the Tar River in eastern North Carolina. A life-size portrait of Gurganus hung in our local library’s entryway, and I used to leaf through a copy of his best-known novel, “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” while waiting for my piano lessons to start. (Gurganus knew my music teacher, Gene Featherstone, socially. “A sweetheart,” he assured me.) For me, Gurganus was proof that you could come from the place where I lived—a place steeped in propriety, religion, and tradition—and become a writer.