Thursday, November 5, 2009
Uncategorized Emory celebrates Flannery O'Connor and The Habit of Being
Posted by Wyatt Williams @wyatt_williams on Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 3:17 PM
Marking the 30th anniversary of their publication as The Habit of Being, Emory is celebrating Flannery O'Connor's letters tonight. The southern gothic icon published relatively little fiction in her short lifetime, but her letter writing was wildly prolific. The heavily trimmed-down Habit of Being is longer than the unabridged, complete collection her short stories. Confined to a life lived "between the house and the chicken yard," as she once wrote corresponding with a friend, O'Connor used letters as a way to interact with a wide group of friends. Literary friendships, like those with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, or more personal acquantences, like the queer, lapsed-Catholic Betty Hester, blossomed in her letters, taking on lives as vivid as any of her stories.
As part of the celebration, local actress Brenda Bynum will perform a selection of her letters with Robert and Sally Fitzgerald. Instead of paging though a dogeared copy of The Habits of Being to select material for the performance, Bynum just went to straight to the source. Emory houses all of O'Connor's archives in their special collections library.
"You know, anyone can go and do that. If you like what you hear me read, you really should go see what I left out," she told me over the phone this week. "I pick out things that I think will read well. These letters create a kind of narrative of the friendship."
O'Connor's letters aren't peopled with the same miscreants, vandals, and murders that her stories are, but Bynum doesn't think that her friends escaped the incisive vision that made her stories work, "No one was spared. Flannery turned her gimlet eye on everything right around her. She found a universe to observe in the life around her."
Schedule of events:
Panel: "30th Anniversary of 'The Habit of Being': The Legacy of Sally Fitzgerald"4 - 5 p.m.
Jones Room, Level 3 of the Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle on the Emory campus, Atlanta 30322
- Rosemary Magee, O'Connor scholar and vice president and secretary of the university, will serve as moderator;
- Panelists will include:
- William Sessions, a retired Georgia State University professor and a personal friend of O'Connor's;
- Bruce Gentry, a faculty member at Georgia College & State University and editor of the Flannery O'Connor Review;
- Elizabeth Chase, Woodruff Library Fellow; and
- Lorraine Murray, author of the recently released book “The Abbess of Andalusia: Flannery O’Connor’s Spiritual Journey” and public services assistant in the Pitts Theology Library.
Lecture by Jonathan Yardley: "Flannery O'Connor's Last Masterpiece"
5 - 6 p.m.
Jones Room, Level 3 of the Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle on the Emory campus, Atlanta 30322
Reading by Brenda Bynum: "'Cheers and regards to children...' The Letters of Flannery O'Connor to Robert and Sally Fitzgerald"
7:30 - 9:30 p.m.
Cannon Chapel, 515 Kilgo Circle on the Emory campus, Atlanta 30322
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
5 things to do: Atlanta Streets Alive
-
What would you do for a MoBoulevard T-shirt? UPDATE: CLEANUP CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER
Volunteers at the next Old Fourth Ward community cleanup just got a fashionable incentive to pitch in next Sat., May 18
-
5 things to do: East Atlanta Beer Fest
- More »
More by Wyatt Williams
-
An interview with a neighbor: Susan Bridges
Susan Bridges arrived in Inman Park long before the neighborhood was considered glamorous
-
Inman Park Wish List
- More »
Search Fresh Loaf
Top Commenters
