Colin Woodard is a journalist and author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Before talking about the historical differences that separate Americans geographically and culturally, he gave us a glimpse into life in Maine.
Q. What’s your favorite place to go to relax?
A. The Canadian Maritimes and the border zones between. Even for Mainers it’s so wild and beautiful, and it has some of the world’s highest tides.
Q. How are you different from who you were 10 years ago?
A. Being married and having a kid and all that, which is great. [Also] less foreign travel, and being more intensively involved in one place.
Q. If you could live in any other time—past or future—when would it be and why?
A. Oh, probably some of the big political theater places. Wouldn’t it be interesting to be a tourist in Constantinople in the height of the Byzantine Empire? But I’d want a round-trip ticket.
Q. What’s one skill you want to master?
A. I don’t really play a musical instrument and I think it might be too late, but I wouldn’t mind that. I have been known to be a pretty mean drummer in the Rock Band series of Playstation 3 games, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.
Q. What do you do to clear your mind?
A. These days, with a one-year-old at home, I try to sleep more than four hours at a time.
Q. If you could take only one more journey, where would you go?
A. I’ve never been to China or spent any time there, and that’s obviously the big game in town. It’s got to be pretty interesting to see.
Q. What’s one thing that always makes you think of home?
A. Anything fall—leaves changing, air gets crisp. Maine has a very strong transition from summer to fall.
Q. What’s the next big purchase you want to make?
A. If I can suddenly add two or three decimal places to my income … my next purchase will be a pleasant 400-year-old cottage with an olive grove and some sheep. And someone who will tend them for me. [Laughs.]
Q. When are you most creative?
A. Shortly after I get up. Like a lot of writers, my head gets cluttered with things in the day more as time goes on.
Q. What’s something about you that people don’t expect?
A. I grew up in rural Maine farming—I know how to slaughter animals and dress a sheep and pluck chickens and all that stuff.
