Most of the readers of these letters are probably familiar with the simpler facts of
Flannery O’Connor’s life: that she was born in Savannah, Georgia, on March 25,
1925, the only child of Edward Francis O’Connor and Regina Cline O’Connor; that she moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, her mother’s birthplace, when she was twelve years old, after her father had fallen gravely ill. He died when Flannery was fifteen.
Thereafter she lived in Milledgeville with her mother, in the fine old home of the
Cline family, and attended Peabody High School and Georgia State College for
Women (now Georgia College) in the same town. By the time she received her A.B. degree in 1945, she knew very well what she could and wanted to do.
When Flannery left Milledgeville …show more content…
Her promise had been recognized in college, and she received a scholarship for her Master’s studies. This seems to have been an interesting and fruitful time for her: she read a great deal and she learned a lot about writing. Her first publication, in Accent magazine, of her story “The Geranium,” occurred in 1946 while she was still a student. In 1947 she won the Rinehart-Iowa Fiction Award for a first novel, with part of Wise Blood.
On the strength of this, she was recommended for a place at Yaddo, in Saratoga
Springs, New York, a philanthropic foundation offering artists periods of hospitality and freedom, enabling them to concentrate on their work. For a few months she en- joyed working there, but in the spring of 1949, together with all the other guests, she left Yaddo, which was undergoing a turmoil described on page 11. After a few disagreeable weeks in New York City, she went back to Milledgeville, returned to
New York for the summer, then came with her half-finished novel in September of the same year to join the Robert Fitzgerald family in a hidden house on a wooded hilltop in Ridgefield, Connecticut. There she lived and wrote until, in 1951,
Flannery O’Connor’s life: that she was born in Savannah, Georgia, on March 25,
1925, the only child of Edward Francis O’Connor and Regina Cline O’Connor; that she moved to Milledgeville, Georgia, her mother’s birthplace, when she was twelve years old, after her father had fallen gravely ill. He died when Flannery was fifteen.
Thereafter she lived in Milledgeville with her mother, in the fine old home of the
Cline family, and attended Peabody High School and Georgia State College for
Women (now Georgia College) in the same town. By the time she received her A.B. degree in 1945, she knew very well what she could and wanted to do.
When Flannery left Milledgeville …show more content…
Her promise had been recognized in college, and she received a scholarship for her Master’s studies. This seems to have been an interesting and fruitful time for her: she read a great deal and she learned a lot about writing. Her first publication, in Accent magazine, of her story “The Geranium,” occurred in 1946 while she was still a student. In 1947 she won the Rinehart-Iowa Fiction Award for a first novel, with part of Wise Blood.
On the strength of this, she was recommended for a place at Yaddo, in Saratoga
Springs, New York, a philanthropic foundation offering artists periods of hospitality and freedom, enabling them to concentrate on their work. For a few months she en- joyed working there, but in the spring of 1949, together with all the other guests, she left Yaddo, which was undergoing a turmoil described on page 11. After a few disagreeable weeks in New York City, she went back to Milledgeville, returned to
New York for the summer, then came with her half-finished novel in September of the same year to join the Robert Fitzgerald family in a hidden house on a wooded hilltop in Ridgefield, Connecticut. There she lived and wrote until, in 1951,