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Latest Press Releases
May 8, 2012
What: Presentation on John Huston's Wise Blood
When: May 15, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Andalusia
This event is FREE and open to the public.
On Tuesday, May 15, beginning at 7:00 p.m., The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation will sponsor a presentation at Andalusia by William Walsh on the filming of Wise Blood in 1979 by John Huston. Walsh is a photographer and the author of several books, including David Bottoms: Critical Essays and Interviews (McFarland, 2010). His current project is In Search of Taulkinham: Flannery O'Connor, John Huston, and Wise Blood. His essay by the same title appeared in the Flannery O'Connor Review, Volume 9 (Georgia College, 2011), along with a collection of photographs from the filming of Wise Blood in Macon, Georgia.
May 15, 2012 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood. Huston's film adaptation stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes, who, fresh out of the army, attempts to open the first Church Without Christ. The screenplay was written by Michael and Benedict Fitzgerald, sons of Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, with whom Flannery O'Connor lived for a brief time in Connecticut before returning to Milledgeville for the last thirteen years of her life.
The Criterion Collection released the movie on DVD in 2009, and it includes an audio recording of Flannery O'Connor reading her short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." The Wise Blood DVD is available in the gift shop at Andalusia for $39.95.
May 1, 2012
The public is cordially invited to a reception at Andalusia on Monday, May 7, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m., to celebrate the publication of At Home with Flannery O'Connor: An Oral History.
This handsome hardbound volume features interviews with people who knew Flannery O'Connor, either personally or professionally, while she lived at Andalusia, in Milledgeville, Georgia, from 1951 until her death in 1964. The book includes interviews with nearby friends who visited O'Connor and were familiar with Andalusia, such as Louise Abbot, Mary Barbara Tate, Marion Montgomery, Sister Loretta Costa, and Jack and Frances Thornton. Also included are individuals who corresponded and/or visited with O'Connor about writing and matters of faith, such as Miller Williams, Robert Giroux, Cecil Dawkins, Alfred Corn, and Ashley Brown.
The book is edited by Bruce Gentry and Craig Amason. The interviews were conducted by Frances Florencourt, Craig Amason, Alice Friman, Bruce Gentry, and Sarah Gordon. This volume also includes a collection of photographs of Flannery O'Connor and Andalusia from 1951 to the early 1960s. The black and white historical photographs were taken by Joe McTyre in 1962, and the color historical photographs were taken by Robert W. Mann in the summer of 1951, just after O'Connor moved back to Milledgeville. Contemporary photographs of Andalusia in the book were taken by Alexandria Daniecki.
Some of the interviewees and interviewers are planning to attend this reception.
The publication of At Home with Flannery O'Connor is the product of an oral history project funded by a grant from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc. All proceeds from sales of this book benefit The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation, Inc. The cost of the book is $19.95, and it will be available in the gift shop at Andalusia at the reception.
April 17, 2012
Elizabeth Stuckey-French at Andalusia
What: Reading & book signing by Elizabeth Stuckey-French
When: April 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Andalusia
FREE and open to the public
The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation will host award-winning author Elizabeth Stuckey-French for a reading and book-signing reception at Andalusia on Thursday, April 26, beginning at 7:00 p.m.
Elizabeth Stuckey-French is the author of two novels, The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady and Mermaids on the Moon, as well as a collection of short stories, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa. She is a co-author, along with Janet Burroway and Ned Stuckey-French, of Writing Fiction: A Guide to the Narrative Craft. Her short stories have appeared in The Normal School, Narrative Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Gettysburg Review, Southern Review, Five Points, and The O’Henry Prize Stories 2005. She was awarded a James Michener Fellowship and has won grants from the Howard Foundation, the Indiana Arts Foundation, and the Florida Arts Foundation. She teaches fiction writing at Florida State University.
Her latest novel is The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady. In this dark comedy wrapped inside a wacky family drama, a vengeful old lady is hell bent on murdering an even older man…who has lost his mind. Seventy-seven year old Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs come hell or high water. In 1953, he gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent as part of a secret government study that had horrible consequences. Marylou has been plotting her revenge for fifty years when she accidentally discovers his whereabouts in Florida and her plans finally snap into action. She high-tails it to hot and humid Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where a now senile Spriggs lives with his daughter’s family, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into their lives. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she is stumbling into. Before the novel is through, someone will be kidnapped, an unlikely couple will get engaged, someone will nearly die from eating a pineapple upside-down cake laced with anti-freeze, and that’s not all. Told from the varied perspectives of an incredible cast of endearing oddball characters and written with the flare of a native Floridian, this is a lively, intricately plotted, laugh-out-loud funny, and surprisingly touching family drama that combines the wit of Carl Hiaasen with the southern charm of Jill McCorkle.
Copies of this novel are available for purchase in the Andalusia Gift Shop.
If you liked the film “Little Miss Sunshine,” you’ll absolutely LOVE The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady! Not only whacked-out and wonderful, this novel is secretly very damn serious, too, as well as up-to-the-minute contemporary and compelling. Elizabeth Stuckey-French brings her completely original voice and vision to the theme of family—-and revenge. I couldn’t put it down.”
– Lee Smith, bestselling author of The Last Girls and On Agate Hill
April 12, 2012
New book on Flannery O'Connor
The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation is proud to announce the publication of At Home with Flannery O'Connor: An Oral History.
This handsome hardbound volume features interviews with people who knew Flannery O'Connor, either personally or professionally, while she lived at Andalusia, in Milledgeville, Georgia, from 1951 until her death in 1964. The book includes interviews with nearby friends who visited O'Connor and were familiar with Andalusia, such as Louise Abbot, Mary Barbara Tate, Marion Montgomery, Sister Loretta Costa, and Jack and Frances Thornton. Also included are individuals who corresponded and/or visited with O'Connor about writing and matters of faith, such as Miller Williams, Robert Giroux, Cecil Dawkins, Alfred Corn, and Ashley Brown.
The book is edited by Bruce Gentry and Craig Amason. The interviews were conducted by Frances Florencourt, Craig Amason, Alice Friman, Bruce Gentry, and Sarah Gordon. This volume also includes a collection of photographs of Flannery O'Connor and Andalusia from 1951 to the early 1960s. The black and white historical photographs were taken by Joe McTyre in 1962, and the color historical photographs were taken by Robert W. Mann in the summer of 1951, just after O'Connor moved back to Milledgeville. Contemporary photographs of Andalusia in the book were taken by Alexandria Daniecki.
The publication of At Home with Flannery O'Connor is the product of an oral history project funded by a grant from the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc. All proceeds from sales of this book benefit The Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation, Inc. The cost of the book is $19.95. It is available in the gift shop at Andalusia (478-454-4029).
The following quotes are just a few highlights from the book.
"One of my favorite memories of her is seeing her parked in a car downtown in front of the movie house on a hot summer day, with all the windows rolled down, while her mother did shopping up and down the street, and where every passerby stopped to speak to Flannery."
Mary Barbara Tate
"She said one time—I don’t remember the character—but she said, “I had to let this person in the story, but I wouldn’t let him in my house.” That was something that brought a grin to my face. . . . We laughed a lot."
Miller Williams
"You know, many Southern women are brought up to be very gracious. And that can limit the kinds of things that you’re able to say. And she was determined not to be held in by those constraints. And if she had something to say, even though it might not seem all that nice, she said it."
Alfred Corn
"Oh, she had a marvelous sense of humor. And of course, her whole career as a cartoonist, before she wrote, was another indication of that. She was a humorist, you might say. It was part of her gift: a sense of humor and a wonderful one in my opinion."
Robert Giroux
"As different as we were, there was something we had in common that I’ve never been able to name ---- something that made us very comfortable with each other. I do think that when she knew I was coming, or when I was there, she was relaxed. And I was, too."
Louise Abbot
January 20, 2012
February Lecture Series 2012
The Foundation has sponsored a lecture series each February since 2006. These programs are held each Sunday in February, from 3 to 5 p.m. The lectures take place in the dining room of the main house and are followed by a light reception. These lectures have been well attended in the past and have become very popular annual events.
Feb. 5 – Dr. Carol Andrews, Associate Professor of English at Armstrong Atlantic State University. Professor Andrews will give a lecture on Flannery O'Connor and Alice Walker, with special consideration of Wise Blood and The Color Purple.
Feb. 12 – Winston Skinner, Chairman of the Erskine Caldwell Birthplace and Museum in Moreland, Georgia. Mr. Skinner will give an overview of the activities and programs offered at this site, which like Andalusia, is also located on the Southern Literary Trail.
Feb. 19 – Dr. Beauty Bragg, Assistant Professor of English at Georgia College. Professor Bragg will discuss Alice Walker's startling rendering of the God concept and its connection to the shifting relations among the characters in the novel The Color Purple.
Feb. 26 – Dr. David King, Professor of English at Kennesaw State University. Professor King will explore the connections between O'Connor and several modern filmmakers, including Bill Bob Thornton and the Coen Brothers.
January 6, 2012
Foundation Receives Grant to Rescue Cow Barn
The Georgia Department of Economic Development and the Georgia Council for the Arts have awarded the Foundation a $10,000 Tourism Product Development matching grant to help rescue and stabilize the main cow barn at Andalusia. Located approximately one hundred yards north of the main house, the cow barn is the largest structure on the property, dating from the early to mid-twentieth century. The stabilization of the cow barn will be the fifth restoration project that the Foundation has undertaken in six years. Visitors to Andalusia can see the cow barn with its large hayloft, reminiscent of the structure that plays such a crucial role in O'Connor's short story "Good Country People." Oprah Winfrey's magazine of interior design, O At Home, published an article in 2008 featuring five American authors and the places that inspired them. O'Connor and Andalusia were included in the article with a full-page photo of the cow barn's hayloft and an excerpt from the short story. The cow barn was an essential part of the farm complex in the 1950s and is still an important part of the interpretation of the site today. This grant must be matched dollar-for-dollar.
November 1, 2011
Donna Barwick joins the Foundation Board of Directors
At its annual meeting on October 29, 2011 in Atlanta, the Board of Directors of the Flannery O'Connor-Andalusia Foundation, Inc. elected Donna Barwick to the Board. Ms. Barwick is the Vice President and Senior Fiduciary Officer at Wilmington Trust, N.A. in Atlanta. She is responsible for managing the ongoing fiduciary needs of significant personal trust clients throughout the Southeast region. She joined Wilmington Trust in 2009 with more than three decades of experience in trusts and estate planning. Ms. Barwick is a graduate of the UGA School of Law and also earned her bachelor's degree in English, magna cum laude, from UGA.
October 25, 2011
What: Bluegrass concert at Andalusia
When: Saturday, November 5, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: Front lawn of the main house
Admission: $5 per person
Please mark your calendar NOW for the next concert, coming up Saturday, November 5, from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Once again this year, we are indebted to Lynda Banks and Mary Anne Murray, two of the Foundation's Board members, for their sponsorship of this event. We are fortunate that Redline Express will be returning this year to provide several hours of the best Bluegrass music you will hear in the middle Georgia area, or anywhere else, for that matter. Admission for the concert is $5 per person.
Each year since 2004, the Foundation has hosted a Bluegrass concert on the front lawn at Andalusia. If you haven't been able to make it for this event in the past, you certainly will not want to miss out on the fun this year.
Louis Kaduk will offer a guided nature walk on Lower Tobler Creek Trail at 4:00 p.m., before the music begins. Mr. Kaduk supervised the restoration of the pond and the construction of the nature trail. The one-mile hike will begin and end at the Lower Tobler Creek Trail sign next to the driveway. A group of our fine volunteers will also be grilling hamburgers and hotdogs, donated by Sodexo food service at Georgia College. You can bring your own picnic or purchase food after you arrive. Bring a chair, a flashlight, and get ready for an evening of fun.
September 22, 2011
What: Reading/Book Signing by Joe Samuel Starnes
Where: Mary Vinson Memorial Library (Milledgeville)
When: Friday, November 4, at 4:00 p.m.
This event is FREE and open to the public
The Foundation will sponsor a reading and book signing by Joe Samuel Starnes at the Mary Vinson Memorial Library in Milledgeville on Friday, November 4, beginning at 4:00 p.m. Starnes's new novel, Fall Line, will be published by NewSouth Books in October. The novel is set in 1955, when floodgates are poised to slam shut on a concrete dam straddling the Oogasula River, creating a lake that will submerge a forgotten crossroads and thousands of acres of woodlands in rural Georgia. Fall Line unfolds in one day's action, as viewed through the eyes of Elmer Blizzard, a troubled ex-deputy; Mrs. McNulty, a lonely widow who refuses to leave her doomed shack by the river; and a rapacious politician, State Senator Aubrey Terrell, for whom the new lake is named. A story of land grabs, wounded families, bitterness, hypocrisy, violence, and revenge in the changing South, Fall Line is populated by complex characters who want to do the right thing but don't know how.
The genesis of the idea for this book occurred almost twenty years ago, when Starnes was a reporter for the Union-Recorder newspaper in Milledgeville, assigned to check out earthquake-like tremors around Lake Sinclair. He discovered that the man-made lake, built in 1953, did in fact experience minor tremors caused by water seeping into fissures of the earth beneath the lake. These tremors still occur now on occasion and can be felt in Milledgeville. The development of Lake Sinclair also served as the backdrop for one of O'Connor's short stories, "A View of the Woods."
Starnes is a native of Alabama who grew up in Georgia and has lived in New Jersey and Philadelphia for the past decade. His first novel, Calling, was published in 2005. His articles, essays, short stories, and poems have been published by The New York Times, The Washington Post and various magazines. A graduate of the University of Georgia and Rutgers University in Newark, he was awarded a fellowship to the 2006 Sewanee Writers' Conference.
August 16, 2011
The Foundation will join the Flannery O'Connor Review (Georgia College) at booth #509 this year at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia, September 3-4. Founded in 2006, this is the largest independent book festival in the country, and our booth is strategically located to take advantage of the heaviest traffic. Our booth will feature select items from the Andalusia gift shop and copies of the Review for sale, along with plenty of promotional material. This year the festival will feature lectures and signings from 300 national and local authors, including award-winning and best-selling authors representing all genres of books. We hope to see you there!
July 28, 2011
Andalusia Farm was the winner in last week’s Brown’s Guides Facebook Poll on "Your Favorite Literary Pilgrimage" in Georgia. The results were announced this morning on Brown’s Guides Facebook Page.
June 27, 2011
What: Author appearance by Ann Napolitano
Book: A Good Hard Look
When: Wednesday, July 13, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Andalusia
For fans of Flannery O’Connor, a new book by Ann Napolitano will certainly be of interest. It is a novel, A Good Hard Look, set in Milledgeville, Georgia in the 1960s, with O’Connor serving as the principal character. Reviews of the novel call it a "dark, beautifully written story" about her life that is both powerful, inspirational, and truthful. The characters in the book reveal both the mystery and the manners of heartbreak, and their lives intertwined force them and readers to face up to O’Connor’s observation that "the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." The Flannery O'Connor - Andalusia Foundation is pleased to join with the Georgia Center for the Book in a tour through the state for Napolitano to talk about this novel (she also will visit the O'Connor Childhood Home in Savannah). We invite you to join us to hear about this intriguing new book.
About the author: Ann Napolitano is the author of the novels A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. She received an MFA from New York University; she teaches fiction writing for New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and for Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
http://annnapolitano.com/
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