Gail Godwin was born on June 18, 1937, in Birmingham, Alabama.[1] Her parents, Kathleen Krahenbuhl and Mose Winston Godwin, were both from North Carolina, but visiting cousins in Alabama when Godwin was born.[2] Godwin's parents divorced two years later.[3] 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.[4] Her grandfather died in 1939,[4] so Godwin was raised by her mother and grandmother in Asheville, where they lived until 1948.[1][3]
Godwin's grandmother filled the traditional role of a mother, cleaning, cooking and sewing, while her mother was the breadwinner.[1][3] 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.[1] According to Godwin, growing up with two female guardians had an influence on her writing and her decision to become a writer.[1] By age five she had started identifying with her mother's occupation as a writer more so than her grandmother's work.[1] At nine years old Godwin wrote her first story, titled "Ollie McGonnigle".[1][5]
Gail Godwin at age 13 with her motherIn 1948 Kathleen married Frank Cole, a World War II veteran, and moved the family to Virginia.[1][4] Godwin was further inspired by her mother's determination to continue writing after having a second child.[1] According to Godwin, much of her time growing up was spent in the newsroom, where her mother worked.[6] 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.[7] 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.[4]
In Godwin's late teens, her stepfather was working as a salesman and the family moved often. Godwin attended several different high schools,[8] including an all-girls Catholic school, St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines.[3] It was Godwin's favorite teacher at St. Genevieve-of-the-Pines who persuaded her to start keeping a personal diary.[9] According to Godwin, she had a "church upbringing or convent school training."[10] She attended church at St. Mary's and All Souls.[11] She also wrote a short novel as a teenager.[1]
Godwin had no relationship with her father, until the two re-connected at her high school graduation.[3] Godwin's father then offered to pay for her college education.[8] During her junior year in college, Godwin moved in with her father, who committed suicide later that year.[12] Godwin's uncle[a] and a half brother later committed suicide as well.[3] Her mother died in a car accident[14] in 1989.[4]
Godwin attended Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina from 1955 to 1957. She then transferred to University of North Carolina (UNC), where she attended from 1957 to 1959, graduating with a bachelor's degree in journalism.[1][15] While in college she worked on The Otherwise Virgins, a novel her mother had written, but was unable to find a publisher for.[1] In 1959 Knopf sent an agent to UNC to scout young writers. Godwin submitted a portion of her novel Windy Peaks for their consideration. The story was about the staff and guests at a resort hotel in the mountains. Her manuscript was rejected.[7][16][17][18] Godwin also worked as a waitress at Mayview Manor at Blowing Rock, North Carolina during her sophomore and junior years.[14]
