'The crossroads of time, place and eternity'

 

“The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. (The) problem is to find that location.” – Flannery O'Connor

 

Born in Georgia on March 25, 1925 O’Connor is one of America’s most important literary voices – writing 2 novels, 32 short stories and a large number of reviews and commentaries in her relatively short lifetime (she died at age 39 from cancer).

 

Much of O'Connor's best-known writing on religion, the “writing process,” and the South is contained in her voluminous correspondence with other writers and educators.  After her death her longtime friend Sally Fitzgerald collected and published a book of her letters under the title The Habit of Being.   That book and other letters maintained by Emory University are a key part of O’Connor’s legacy.

 

In 1972, O’Connor’s posthumously published Complete Stories won the National Book Award for Fiction and has been the subject of enduring praise, including being lauded by many critics as the best book to ever have won the prestigious award.

 

O’Connor said as a writer she enjoyed “studying people” and advised young writers to always be aware of their surroundings and the people they encountered.   “The writer should never be ashamed of staring,” she said.  “There is nothing that does not require his or her attention.”