Flannery O'Connor Studies
As the popularity of O'Connor increases, Georgia College receives more and more attention as her alma mater, as does Milledgeville as the place she returned to once she was diagnosed with lupus and where she completed all of her best work. She died at age 39 in 1964.
As the author of two novels and 32 short stories, she is perhaps best known for Wise Blood which was adapted to film by John Huston in 1979. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" are some of her best-known stories. Her acclaim is international.
For example, Bruce Gentry, professor of English and Editor of the Flannery O'Connor Review, put together a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institute in 2007 at Georgia College which brought 24 college teachers to campus for a month to learn how to teach O'Connor's works. The conference was attended by guests from around the country. Other conferences that Gentry has put together include "The Stories of Flannery and Faulkner" in 2008, "O'Connor and Other Georgia Writers" in 2006 and "Revelations: Flannery O'Connor, the Visionary and the Vernacular" in 2003.
"O'Connor's star is rising," says Gentry, "and Georgia College benefits whenever she receives attention, as when her Complete Stories was recently voted the best book ever to win the National Book Award. Students who study O'Connor at Georgia College benefit from the visits by many O'Connor scholars, the access to O'Connor materials and the ability to attend O'Connor-related events."