Gail Godwin

Gail Godwin (born June 18, 1937) is an American novelist and short story writer.

Godwin has written 14 novels, two short story collections, three non-fiction books, and ten libretti.

Her primary literary accomplishments are her novels, which have included five best-sellers and three finalists for the National Book Award.

Most of her books are realistic fiction novels that follow a character's psychological and intellectual development, often based on themes taken from Godwin's own life.

Godwin was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but raised mostly in Asheville, North Carolina by her mother and grandmother.

She adopted her mother's interest in writing at an early age and obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC).

After graduating, she worked briefly as a reporter for The Miami Herald, then traveled to Europe and worked for the U.S. Travel Service run by the U.S. Embassy in London.

She returned to the U.S. after six years.

Gail Godwin was born on June 18, 1937, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Her parents, Kathleen Krahenbuhl and Mose Winston Godwin, were both from North Carolina, but visiting cousins in Alabama when Godwin was born.

Godwin's parents divorced two years later.

After the breakup, Gail and her mother moved in with her grandparents in Durham, North Carolina.

They moved again to Weaverville, NC and then to Asheville, NC.

Her grandfather died in 1939, so Godwin was raised by her mother and grandmother in Asheville, where they lived until 1948.

Godwin's grandmother filled the traditional role of a mother, cleaning, cooking and sewing, while her mother was the breadwinner.

Godwin's mother had a Bachelor's and master's degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She taught college-level English in the mornings, and worked as a reporter for a local paper, Asheville Citizen-Times, in the evenings.

On the weekends she wrote love stories for magazines in New York.

According to Godwin, growing up with two female guardians had an influence on her writing and her decision to become a writer.

By age five she had started identifying with her mother's occupation as a writer more so than her grandmother's work.

At nine years old Godwin wrote her first story, titled "Ollie McGonnigle".

In 1948 Kathleen married Frank Cole, a World War II veteran, and moved the family to Virginia.

Godwin was further inspired by her mother's determination to continue writing after having a second child.

According to Godwin, much of her time growing up was spent in the newsroom, where her mother worked.

She also witnessed her mother's plays and novels being rejected.

Godwin's autobiography creates the impression that much of her own writing was intended to accomplish the things her mother could not.

As Cole's salary increased and he was able to support the family, Godwin's mother focused on being a wife and homemaker, eventually not writing at all.

In Godwin's late teens, her stepfather was working as a salesman and the family moved often.

Godwin attended several different high schools, including an all-girls Catholic school, St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines.

It was Godwin's favorite teacher at St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines who persuaded her to start keeping a personal diary.

According to Godwin, she had a "church upbringing or convent school training."

She attended church at St. Mary's and All Souls.

She also wrote a short novel as a teenager.

Godwin had no relationship with her father, until the two re-connected at her high school graduation.

Godwin taught English at the University of Iowa, while earning her M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1971) in English Literature.

While at the University of Iowa, Godwin's dissertation became her first novel, The Perfectionists.

By 1976 she had become a successful writer and author of three books.

In particular, two books written by her in the 1980s, A Mother and Two Daughters (1982) and A Southern Family (1987), resulted in further acclaim and expanded the readership of her books.

Following The Finishing School (1984), readership of her books dramatically declined until 2006, when Queen of the Underworld was published.

Flora (2013) became one of her more commercially successful novels.