7 ratings | 2 reviews | avg rating:4.57

more photos (2)

Megan Mayhew Bergman’s Followers (312)

Megan’s Bookshelves

to-read (8)
currently-reading (1)
read (7)

Megan’s Friends (367)

Ian Pisarcik

1,375 books | 27 friends

Jen

1,095 books | 271 friends

545 books | 239 friends

Nicholas Montemarano

785 books | 97 friends

Lauren Jenkins

4,568 books | 216 friends

Jaime Boler

12,623 books | 592 friends

Taylor Noel

1,605 books | 361 friends

Audra Jenkins

596 books | 202 friends

More friends…

Megan Mayhew Bergman

Goodreads Author

Born

in Gaffney, SC, The United States

Website

http://www.mayhewbergman.com/

Twitter

mayhewbergman

Genre

Fiction, Nonfiction

Member Since

January 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/meganmayhewbergman

edit data

Megan Mayhew Bergman is the author of three books, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season, forthcoming from Scribner in March 2022. She is currently writing a book on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, also with Scribner.

She lives on a farm in Vermont with two daughters and several rescue animals, and directs the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference at Middlebury College.

*

Megan studied anthropology at Wake Forest University, has an MA from Duke University, and an MFA from Bennington College. Her work was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers and an Indie Next selection, and won the Garrett Award for Fiction in 2012. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Megan Mayhew Bergman is the author of three books, Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, and How Strange a Season, forthcoming from Scribner in March 2022. She is currently writing a book on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, also with Scribner.

She lives on a farm in Vermont with two daughters and several rescue animals, and directs the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference at Middlebury College.

*

Megan studied anthropology at Wake Forest University, has an MA from Duke University, and an MFA from Bennington College. Her work was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers and an Indie Next selection, and won the Garrett Award for Fiction in 2012. She has received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the American Library in Paris.

Megan is a journalist, essayist, and critic. She has written columns on climate change and the natural world for The Guardian and The Paris Review. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Oxford American, Orion, and elsewhere. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2011 and 2015, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts. She was awarded the Phil Reed Environmental Writing Award for Journalism in 2020.

While at Bennington College, she served as the Associate Director of the MFA program and Director of the Robert Frost Stone House Museum. She currently teaches literature and environmental writing at Middlebury College, where she also serves as Director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference.

Her work has been optioned for film and translated into several languages. She’s collaborated with choreographer Annie Wang, traveled to Northern Kenya’s conflict zone with The BOMA Project, and can often be found on the coast of Georgia supporting her friends at conservation non-profit One Hundred Miles. Her photography has appeared in The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, and Audubon.

Megan recently served as a Senior Fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation. She’s currently a regular columnist at The Guardian and Audubon. ...more

Learn more
Ask the Author

To ask Megan Mayhew Bergman questions, please sign up.

Combine Editions
Megan Mayhew Bergman’s books

Average rating: 3.73 · 9,527 ratings · 1,509 reviews · 17 distinct works • Similar authors

	Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories 3.85 avg rating — 3,149 ratings — published 2012 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Almost Famous Women: Stories 3.46 avg rating — 3,254 ratings — published 2015 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Best American Short Stories 2011 by Geraldine Brooks (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Heidi Pitlor (Goodreads Author) (Series Editor), Caitlin Horrocks (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.86 avg rating — 2,046 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Best American Short Stories 2015 by T. Coraghessan Boyle (Goodreads Author), Heidi Pitlor (Goodreads Author) (Series Editor), Megan Mayhew Bergman (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 3.93 avg rating — 1,283 ratings — published 2015 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How Strange a Season 3.86 avg rating — 533 ratings — published 2022 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	کیک عروسی و داستان‌های دیگر by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Goodreads Author), Russell Banks, مژده دقیقی (Translator), Julie Otsuka 3.58 avg rating — 53 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Phoenix (Ploughshares Solos Book 3) 4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Housewifely Arts 3.14 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 2010 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Exhibition 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman (2015-01-20) by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Goodreads Author), Unknown Author 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Megan Mayhew Bergman…

163 posts
Megan Mayhew Bergman's Blog

My Name is Megan

and I like books.

View more on Megan Mayhew Bergman's website »

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 20, 2013 19:37

View all 163 posts »

Megan is Currently Reading

Megan Bergman is currently reading

The Book of Life

by Stuart Nadler (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Jul 27, 2021 02:02PM

Quotes by Megan Mayhew Bergman (?)

“Mothers, I believe, intoxicate us. We idolize them and take them for granted. We hate them and blame them and exalt them more thoroughly than anyone else in our lives. We sift through the evidence of their love, reassure ourselves of their affection and its biological genesis. We can steal and lie and leave and they will love us.”
― Megan Mayhew Bergman, Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories

tags: mothers

35 likes

“I wanted, then, to become what I most admired, what now seemed most real to me. I wanted to be that exalted, complicated presence in someone's life, the familiar body, the source of another's existence. But I knew what I wanted was not always what I needed.”
― Megan Mayhew Bergman, Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories

7 likes

“I want to mother the world, I thought. I have so much love.
Then—I have no business being a mother. I am a selfish woman.
Then—I can do this. Millions of women have been mothers.
Then—I feel very alone. I do not know what I'm capable of.”
― Megan Mayhew Bergman, Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories

tags: mother

7 likes

See all Megan Mayhew Bergman's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Reading with Style: Spring 2012 Reading w/Style Completed Tasks	952	277	May 31, 2012 08:59PM
The Seasonal Read...: Fall Challenge 2013: Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE POSTS)	2481	642	Nov 30, 2013 09:01PM
All About Books: Suggestions for ' Seasonal Author'	97	79	Dec 04, 2014 02:34PM
500 Great Books B...: Decades, Centuries, and Millenia	8	407	Dec 06, 2014 09:46PM
Read 4 Review: My latest review	2	28	Dec 25, 2014 02:01PM

More…

Megan’s Quotes

“As for literary criticism in general: I have long felt that any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel or a play or a poem is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.”
― kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage

tags: bad-reviews, critics, literary-criticism, reviewers, writing

599 likes

“All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.”
― Jean Rhys

103 likes

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

tags: environment, exploration, explore, land, mysterious, mystery, nature, sea, unexplorable, unfathomable, wild, wilderness, wildness

1505 likes

“Men travel faster now, but I do not know if they go to better things.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

148 likes

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
― Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

1727 likes

More of Megan’s quotes…

Megan’s Friend Comments

No comments have been added yet.