Continental Freshwater People

| books | life | writers |

In a recent blog post on the Vonnegut Library blog, Rai Peterson, an English Professor at Ball State University writes about the perception of how writers only come from

"that cluster of states on the east coast that were so small their names on maps had to be written on the ocean."

One of my favorite quotes from “A Man Without a Country”, is when Vonnegut describes himself as a “continental freshwater person”. This is one of the more interesting ways that I have heard someone describe the mindset that comes with growing up in the midwest. Despite my love for Vonnegut’s work, I am a bit ashamed to admit that until I visited the Vonnegut Museum and Library I had no idea that he was from Indianapolis.

Growing up in Cincinnati Ohio, I also dreamed of becoming a writer and the sentiment that Peterson describes rings true to me to this day.

Later in life, like many others, I escaped the continental freshwater, and found my way to a city by the ocean. Over the last few years I have been visiting every state capital and reading a ton of books along the way. Vonnegut, along with all of the other writers in those lists who did not come from a city by the ocean give me a lot of hope that although writers may end up in the same place, but they can come from anywhere.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

How Many Mildliner Colours Are There Now?

I made a mildliner reference site to keep track of all the colours

via Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed June 27, 2025

Resupply stablecoin lender exploited for $9.3 million

An attacker was able to exploit a vulnerability in a smart contract used by the Resupply stablecoin lender to extract about $9.3 million from the project. After depositing around $200,000, they were able to inflate the price of anoth…

via Web3 is Going Just Great June 27, 2025

Self-driving is finally happening

I still remember how the car industry got all excited back in 2017 about how steering wheels would soon be obsolete. Every concept car then was a living room on wheels, seats facing inwards. The self-driving revolution was imminent, they said. Well, it …

via David Heinemeier Hansson June 27, 2025

Generated by openring