Mystery and Manners in Savannah

Short Stories A Good Man is Hard to Find Good Country People Everything that Rises Must Converge Revelation Essays The Fiction Writer and His Country Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction The Regional Writer The Nature and Aim of Fiction Writing Short Stories On Her Own Work The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South To read Flannery O'Connor's fiction is to be amused, provoked, and pushed to reconsider ourselves and our place in the world. A Roman Catholic and a native of Georgia, O'Connor created stories that inimitably blend humor, horror, and the mysteries of faith. While her writing is richly specific, evoking the dusty back roads and quirky characters of the American South, it deals powerfully with universal questions: What does it mean to be good? How should we live? What is the meaning of death? How can the divine penetrate the everyday world? In her relatively short lifetime (1925-64), O'Connor created a powerful body of work, including two novels and a number of short stories and nonfiction pieces. In O'Connor's stories, deceptively ordinary situations a bus ride, an encounter with a traveling salesman, a family automobile trip erupt into life-altering revelations. In her essays, O'Connor delves deeply into the mystery of writing, why people do it, struggle over it, sacrifice so much of themselves in order to do it. Discussion Leader(s): Nancy Carr was a senior editor at the Great Books Foundation in Chicago and is now engaged in freelance writing and teaching. She has taught college courses in writing and English literature, and led a week-long seminar on the works of Flannery O'Connor at Classical Pursuits' summer program in Toronto. Mary Barbara Tate, a member of the Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation board of directors, fondly remembers her visits to Andalusia during O'Connor's time there. A professor of English at Georgia College and State University for twenty-three years, Tate belonged to a reading group that met every week at the farmhouse to discuss Southern literature chosen by O'Connor. Advertisement: Location: Flannery O'Connor in Savannah April 6th-10th, 2008 Date(s): April 6th-10th, 2008 Fees: $1,650 $450 single supplement Fees include All readings accommodation, daily discussion, guided walks, two meals each day (breakfast and either lunch or dinner) informal talks admissions private coach excursion to Milledgeville, including reception at O'Connor family farm, Andalusia Accomodations: Marshall House This unique modern hotel with the intimate comfort of a bed & breakfast has the perfect historic location downtown on Broughton Street, in the heart of Savannah's historic district. It was voted Savannah's Best Hotel in 2004 and 2005. Authors: Short Stories A Good Man is Hard to Find Good Country People Everything that Rises Must Converge Revelation Essays The Fiction Writer and His Country Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction The Regional Writer The Nature and Aim of Fiction Writing Short Stories On Her Own Work The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South Advertisement: