Mary Flannery O'Connor: One of the Best Short Story Writers of Her Day

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Recommended: Analysis of Flannery O'Connor's Story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find

One of the best short story writers of her day, Mary Flannery O’Connor was a brilliant writer, and still is, highly acclaimed. Her unique style of writing has a large part in her continued popularity. Ann Garbett states,”…O’Connor combined religious themes from her Roman Catholic vision with a comically realist character from the rural Protestant south to create a fiction that is simultaneously serious and comic” (1910). Mary O’Connor Flannery was an extremely talented young author who experienced hardships throughout her short life’ However, she used these experiences, her Roman Catholic faith, and the writings of William Faulkner and Nathanael West to develop highly praised short stories and novels such as “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” and Wise Blood.
On March 25, 1925 one of the greatest American short story writers was brought into the world. An only child, Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia to Regina Cline and Edward O’Connor. O’Connor was very close to her father and when she was sixteen he was diagnosed with disseminated lupus, a disease that was untreatable at that time. She was devastated when he died soon after being diagnosed.
In 1942 O’Connor enrolled in a three year accelerated program at Georgia State College for Women. While there, she became very well-known as a cartoonist for the campus literary magazine, newspaper, and yearbook. She went on to graduate school at the University of Iowa where took part in the creative writing program and earned a master’s degree in fine arts. It was at the University of Iowa that O’Connor published her first short stories. “Her master’s thesis, “The Geranium: A Collection of Six Stories,” led to her receipt of the Rinehart-Iowa fiction prize” says Boswell and Roll...

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O’Connor, Mary Flannery. Wise Blood. New York: Penguin Books USA Incorporated, 1962.
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“O’Connor, (Mary) Flannery.” FactCite: Lincoln Library Biographies Online. Lincoln Lib. P,
2012. Web 3 Dec 2013.
Boswell, Marshall, and Carol Rollyson, eds. “O’Connor, Flannery.” Bloom’s Literature.
Facts on File, Incorporated. Web. 4 Dec 2013.
Carr, Patt. “Flannery O’Connor.” American Women Writers. Lina Mainiero. New York:
Fredrick Ungar Publishing Company, 1981. 287-291.
“Flannery O’Connor.” Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2nd ed. Vol. 11 Detroit: Gale,
2004. 467-468. Gale Virtual Library, Web. 5 Dec 2013.
Kort, Carol. “O’Connor, Flannery.” Bloom’s Literature. Facts on File, Incorporated. Web. 5
Dec 2013.
Garbett, Ann D. “Flannery O’Connor.” Magill’s Survey of American Literature. Steven G
Kellman. Pasadena: Salem Press Incorporated, 2007. 1909-1919. Print.

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