Biography

March 25, 1925 · Savannah, Georgia, USA

August 3, 1964 · Milledgeville, Georgia, USA (complications from lupus)

Mary Flannery O'Connor

Much of her early work was denounced by critics as "profoundly unladylike".

Friend of Robert Fitzgerald and Sally Fitzgerald, she would babysit their son, Benedict Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was writing a biography of O'Connor when she died.

Pictured on a USA commemorative 'forever' postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued 5 June 2015. Price on day of issue was 93¢, the 3-ounce rate that went into effect 31 May 2015.

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.

There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

On success: It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.

On writing: When I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it's because we are still able to recognize one.

Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it's going to be called realistic.