74
2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS KITCHEN, CORNELL UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHY
ROBERT MORGAN
“BECAUSE I WAS LIVING AWAY I PROBABLY WROTE MORE ABOUT MY FAMILY AND THE PLACE WHERE I HAD GROWN UP THAN I WOULD HAVE OTHERWISE.” —Robert Morgan
Robert Morgan was born in 1944 (on October 3, a birthdate he shares with Thomas Wolfe) in Hendersonville, North Carolina, and grew up on a family farm in the Green River Valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains. After studying at North Carolina State University, he transferred to UNC Chapel Hill, where he graduated in 1965 with a BA in English, followed by an MFA from UNC Greensboro, where he studied with Fred Chappell. Since 1971 he has lived in Northern Appalachia – in Ithaca, New York – where he is Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell University. Since 1998, he has held distinguished visiting professor positions throughout the Carolinas – at Davidson College, Duke University, East Carolina University, Furman University, and Appalachian State University. Morgan is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, and biography and has been celebrated for his work in all three genres. A New York Times bestselling author, his novels have won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award, have been selected for the Oprah Book Club, and have been listed as a notable book by Publisher’s Weekly and The New York Times. His poetry has been recognized by the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize, the Amon Liner Poetry Prize, the Southern Poetry Review Prize, and the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry. He has also received fellowships from numerous sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2007, he received both the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the R. Hunt Parker Award from the North Carolina Literary and Historical Association. In 2010, he was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame. His writing in three genres shows a sustained interest in the history of the American frontier and is frequently grounded in the past of his family’s farm in Western North Carolina. HOVIS: You grew up in the North Carolina mountains and studied at North Carolina universities. Since 1971 you have lived at the northernmost extent of the Appalachian chain. What cultural continuities have you noted in Appalachia, North and South, and how have these informed your writing? ROBERT MORGAN: Before coming to Cornell in 1971 I had never lived outside North Carolina, except for one year at Emory College in Oxford, Georgia. My first contract at Cornell was for only one year. I expected to be back in North Carolina in 1972, probably working as a house painter again. Then someone else went on leave at Cornell, and I was invited to stay for another year. Suddenly in 1973 I was made a professor and placed on the tenure ladder. I’d never expected to remain at Cornell, but was thrilled to have a
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