Novel Destinations

If visiting literary landmarks like Andalusia is your idea of rounding out a great vacation, then you may be interested in a book called Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen's Bath to Ernest Hemingway's Key West. This 2008 publication from the National Geographic Society is now available in paperback (in our gift shop - $13.95). Shannon McKenna and Joni Rendon give summaries and highlights of the homes and haunts of famous writers at over 500 locations, with in depth reviews of ten locations in the U.S. and abroad. Andalusia hasn't made it to this book's top ten list just yet; however, Flannery O'Connor gets three pages featuring the Childhood Home in Savannah, the O'Connor Collection at Georgia College in Milledgeville, and Andalusia. The book also lists literary festivals, tours, libraries, lodging, and other related places to visit. The Denver Post hails Novel Destinations as "a dream come true for reading enthusiasts who also travel." It is a fine guide book and companion to larger, and more photographic works such as American Writers at Home by J. D. McClatchy and Erica Lennard and Writers of the American South by Hugh Howard and Roger Straus III, both of which feature Andalusia. Of course, for O'Connor enthusiasts, the best guide book available is Sarah Gordon's The Literary Guide to Flannery O'Connor's Georgia published by UGA Press in 2008.

Craig

New presence on Facebook

Andalusia now has a new "address" in the Facebook neighborhood. If you aren't familiar with Facebook, it is probably the fastest growing online community in the country. It provides its users with an easy way to post interests, photos, events, discussions, and other information, which they can share with a limited audience of "friends" or with anybody who logs on to the site. Facebook almost serves as a personal website generator for individuals, organizations, and businesses. We started out with a MySpace Page a few years back, then migrated to a Facebook profile last year. Due to restrictions of Facebook, Andalusia had to change from a "profile" to a "page." Please visit Andalusia on Facebook and consider becoming one of our fans. Here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Milledgeville-GA/Andalusia-Home-of-Flannery-OConnor/155972759656?ref=nf

Craig

Tokens at Flannery O'Connor's grave

A good portion of O'Connor fans who visit Andalusia also take the time to see other sites in Milledgeville associated with the writer, including Georgia College, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and Memory Hill Cemetery, where O'Connor is buried. As is the case with the graves of famous people all over the world, visitors often leave behind something on or around O'Connor's tombstone. The most common objects are coins, usually pennies. The motivations behind this gesture are varied, from demonstrating affection and respect for the deceased to paying for one's passage to the afterlife. There are even voodoo practices associated with leaving coins at grave sites! In addition to the traditional flowers, some visitors to O'Connor's grave leave behind other tokens such as peacock feathers, pebbles, stones, poems, small books, and figurines. I once found a small plastic gorilla figure at the foot of her tombstone (a big fan of Wise Blood, obviously). On a recent visit, a Frenchman named Jacques Colin took some photographs of the tombstone adorned with several tokens. He was amazed that, over the course of just three days, the collection of the items on the tombstone expanded and was rearranged several different times. We encourage all our visitors to see Memory Hill Cemetery and the grave site. O'Connor's deep convictions and her fixed gaze on the eternal make such a pilgrimage most appropriate.

Craig

Andalooshya

Because Flannery O'Connor has such a wide following, both here in the U.S. and around the world, we often welcome visitors to Andalusia who are venturing through the South for the first time. Some of these individuals are familiar with the region in southern Spain, the place the property was apparently named after by some of the nineteenth-century owners. In fact, a few years back we welcomed several professors to the farm who were teaching in that specific region. If our visitors are well acquainted with that Spanish community, they may assume that O'Connor and her family pronounced the farm's name as the Spanish would, Andalucia (sounds like AndalooSEEya). However, as well-established American Southerners by the twentieth century, the Clines and O'Connors spelled the name with an "s" instead of a "c" and pronounced it, AndaLOOshya. We still hear several different pronunciations of the name, from AndaLOOsa to AndaLOOseea. Frankly, it makes no difference to me how you pronounce the name as long as you make sure to come see it for yourself. I think you will agree, Andalusia es muy bonito!

How Many Acres Are There?

The 1947 entry in Sally Fitzgerald's chronology in the Library of America volume, Flannery O'Connor Collected Works, explains that upon his death, Dr. Bernard Cline left the Andalusia property to his sister, Regina Cline O'Connor (Flannery's mother), and another brother, Louis Cline. The text states that the Andalusia Farm included "500 acres of fields and 1,000 acres of woods." That particular description is not exactly accurate. Bernard Cline actually acquired two tracts of land equaling 550-acres in the early 1930s that were the core of a 1700-acre plantation in the 19th century. It is out of this original property that Dr. Cline and his immediate heirs carved a farm complex, hayfields, and livestock ponds. It was some time after this initial purchase that Dr. Cline began to acquire wooded sections north of the farm, totalling 1,000 acres in size, which remained undeveloped during his lifetime and were never part of the Andalusia Farm. This section was later divided and tracts were distributed to some of Dr. Cline's relatives. Developers eventually purchased some of these tracts and created the Northwoods subdivision, which includes O'Connor Drive and Regina Drive. Today, Andalusia is 544 acres in size (six acres were lost to the highway expansion several decades ago), and the Flannery O'Connor - Andalusia Foundation owns approximately 524 of those acres, including the main house, the outbuildings, pastures, hayfields, several ponds, and forests. In two separate transactions in 2003, the Foundation acquired this property from Mrs. O'Connor's Estate and from the private owners of the twenty-acre farm complex . The remaining twenty-acre tract is located just north of the farm complex and is held by the Executor of Mrs. O'Connor's Estate.

Craig

The King of the Birds Returns to Andalusia

Almost twenty years have passed since the screams of peafowl pierced the solitude of Andalusia. Thanks to the generosity of some close friends to the Foundation, the King of the Birds will soon return. A few peafowl (not the dozens that O'Connor once raised) will take up residence at the farm in August, settling into a very impressive aviary built by local contractor Billy Allen and his fine crew of craftsmen. And, just for the record, the term "peafowl" refers to the two species of the Pavo genus of pheasants. Only the males, with the very beautiful tail feathers, are called peacocks; the females are called peahens. In other words, technically there is no such thing as a female peacock. Building an aviary adequate to house such large birds is quite an undertaking and was not included in this year's budget. We could really use your help! If you would like to make a donation to help us "bring back the peafowl" to Andalusia, please give us a call at 478-454-4029. Thank you.

Craig

New Souvenirs in the Andalusia Gift Shop

Some of the visitors to Andalusia arrive prepared to spend a week's wages on the interesting assortment of merchandise in our gift shop. They walk away with a bag full of books, note cards, a Stan Strickland print, and a few other treasures. However, some of our visitors may not have so much money to spend, especially in this challenging economy, but they still want to take something home that will remind them of their experience at O'Connor's home. We have recently added yet another line of inexpensive souvenirs to fit just about any budget -- full-color Lucite refrigerator magnets! Now wait, before you groan, please understand that these are VERY attractive magnets with four different photo styles: the main house, the pond, a peacock, and a single peacock feather. They are reasonably priced at $4 each. Call and order your magnet(s) today at 478-454-4029.

Craig

New Bibliographic Work on O'Connor

Cambridge University Press has just published Volume 16 in the American Critical Archives Series, and the title is Flannery O'Connor: The Contemporary Reviews. The editors are R. Neil Scott from Middle Tennessee State University and Irwin H. Streigh from the Royal Military College of Canada. The title is a bit misleading, as the editors admit, because the reviews are not limited to those published only during O'Connor's lifetime. In their words, "Given the remarkable posthumous acclaim for O'Connor's art and thought, and the special honor accorded her in the seven years following her death in 1964, in selecting and editing reviews for this volume we have taken what we feel are legitimate liberties within the rubric of contemporary critical responses to American authors with which the series is concerned." And, it should be noted that O'Connor is in very good company in this series with writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Twain, T. S. Eliot, and Eudora Welty. This volume offers critical book reviews on O'Connor's published fiction and essays, including more than 400 reviews from more than 200 publications. With a total of 482 pages, including a strong introduction and a respectable index, this monograph will be a valuable addition to O'Connor scholarship.

Craig

Restoring the Milk-Processing Shed

A grant from the Milledgeville chapter of the Watson-Brown Junior Board made it possible for the Foundation to begin work last week on restoring the milk-processing shed at Andalusia. Funding for the project also came from gifts given in memory of Robert W. Mann (former Chair of the Board) and his sister-in-law, Catherine Florencourt Firth. The general contractor for the project is Allen Contruction Company of Milledgeville, the same firm that completed the restoration of the pump house in 2008. The milk-processing shed is located in front of the main cow barn a few hundred feet behind the main house. It is a one-story structure with two small interior rooms and is constructed of structural clay tile and covered with a wood-frame hipped roof and tin roofing. The north room is accessible by doors from the west and north and houses an existing pump along with cooling and storage equipment. The south room has a built-in "basin" constructed of concrete on the east wall. There is a small addition on the south side of the building with its own entrance, and this room houses an electric water heater. The old chimney above this addition is still in place, implying that the heat source at one time was wood or coal. As was the case with the restoration of the water tower and pump house, we hope to recreate the semblance of an operational farm for the purposes of education and historic preservation. Although these structures are no longer functional on the property, they are predominant pieces of the agricultural landscape at Andalusia and represent significant artifacts of twentieth-century farm life in central Georgia. They are also integral elements of the setting which provided inspiration for so many of Flannery O'Connor's stories. An interesting sidenote about the milk-processing shed: it was slightly modified during the summer of 1976 for the filming at Andalusia of O'Connor's short story, "The Displaced Person." Wood siding was placed over the tile of the shed to make it look like the tenant shack for the Polish immigrant family in the story. The siding was removed after filming was complete. The PBS production of "The Displaced Person" is now on DVD and available in the gift shop at Andalusia.

Craig

Wise Blood on DVD

The Criterion Collection has issued John Huston's Wise Blood on DVD, which was just released in May, 2009. The movie originally appeared in theaters in 1979 and stars Brad Dourif as Hazel Motes. This special edition DVD features interviews with Brad Dourif, writer Benedict Fitzgerald, and writer-producer Michael Fitzgerald. There is a 26-minute episode of the television program Creativity with Bill Moyers from 1982, featuring director John Huston discussing his life and work. But the real treasured addition to the DVD is a rare archival audio recording of Flannery O'Connor reading her short story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." This DVD is an absolute must-have for O'Connor fans and literary collectors. The cost of the DVD is $39.95. You can order your copy from the Andalusia gift shop at 478-454-4029.

Craig

The Habit of Being -- Happy 30th!

I am always interested when visitors to Andalusia tell me that they enjoy reading O'Connor's letters in The Habit of Being even more than her fiction. Perhaps she would be horrified to know that some readers find her personal correspondence even more entertaining and/or meaningful than her novels and short stories. I am reminded of a wonderful line from one of our volunteers, a close friend of both Flannery and Regina O'Connor, who said "Flannery couldn't write a dull sentence if she had to." I agree with that assessment completely. Controversial and politically incorrect as they are, and perhaps insensitive to a degree, O'Connor's letters are still a fascinating treasure-trove of theological insight, literary commentary, and laugh-out-loud humor. I think the letters also demonstrate how O'Connor assumed various personae for different correspondents, which is most evidential in the letters to her closest friends, such as "A" (Betty Hester), Maryat Lee, Cecil Dawkins, and the Fitzgeralds. Reading the letters following a visit to Andalusia is a great way to extend the experience of immersing oneself in the setting that inspired one of the greatest writers in American literature. I highly recommend The Habit of Being, especially for 2009, the thirtieth anniversary of its publication.

Craig

Annual appeal from the Foundation

Each year the Foundation sends out an appeal letter to donors or potential donors for support of our efforts at Andalusia to restore and preserve this treasured landmark. While we completely understand that charitable giving may be the last thing on the minds of so many who have felt the pain of the current recession, we hope that you will keep the Foundation on your list of recipients for tax-deductible gifts this year. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, we depend on donations for our day-to-day operations, including keeping Andalusia open for visitors all year long. Please visit our website at www.andalusiafarm.org and click on "Donations" to become a Friend of Andalusia. Thank you.

Craig

O'Connor in pop culture

By now the news has traveled around the globe that this year's season finale of the ABC series "Lost" included as a prop O'Connor's second short story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge. Some folks may remember that the season finale of the TNT series "The Closer" a couple of years ago included a conversation about O'Connor's famous quote, "When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville." In fact, O'Connor's name or the title of her works is showing up more frequently in television, movies, theater, and music. Several household names in the entertainment industry have openly admitted their admiration of O'Connor's work, including Bruce Springsteen, Tommy Lee Jones, Conan O'Brien, Holly Hunter, the Cohen brothers, and John Waters. Folk musician Lucinda Williams chased peacocks as a child while visiting Andalusia with her father, the acclaimed poet Miller Williams. What I find truly striking is how prevalent O'Connor's themes are finding their way into pop culture. For those who flocked to the theaters to see the last Batman movie, "Dark Knight," just recall the compelling words the Joker offered to Batman and later to the detective in the interrogation room (the scene is available on YouTube). His message could have easily come out of the mouth of the Misfit in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." After fifty years or more, it appears to me that Flannery O'Connor has found a generation of readers that is no longer repelled by the grotesque and violence -- instead, those are the elements that attract them the most. Perhaps, with a little guidance from criticism, commentary, and a few good teachers, that attraction will lead those readers more immediately to the deeper truths of O'Connor's work. These are exciting times to be an O'Connor fan.

Craig

Dateline: Rome, Italy

I am writing this entry on the third and final day of the O'Connor conference held at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy. As expected, the primary papers have focused on O'Connor's Catholicism or her theological vision; however, even within that framework, there has been considerable variety. The other papers have truly been all over the board, from the influence of Dante on O'Connor's craft to a comparison of the grotesque in her fiction and the television cartoon series, The Simpsons! I have attended O'Connor conferences in the U.S. that attracted several people from foreign countries, but nothing on this scale. It is amazing to see so many different ethnic and even religious groups represented in one place at one time, all interested in if not devoted to the work of Flannery O'Connor. I was honored to participate on a small level and appreciated the opportunity to provide information about the Foundation's work at Andalusia.

Craig

Another O'Connor website

The Foundation's website at www.andalusiafarm.org is primarily designed to inform visitors about our Foundation and its efforts to restore and preserve Andalusia. Of course, it includes some details of O'Connor's life, the history of the farm, information about visiting the property, teaching resources, and the news and events associated with Andalusia. Visitors can even make donations through the website using a credit card. There are other sites of interest such as the O'Connor Collection at the GCSU Museum in Milledgeville and O'Connor's Childhood Home in Savannah. There is another site devoted to all things O'Connor that gets an incredible amount of web traffic. The site is called "Comforts of Home" and bills itself as a Flannery O'Connor Repository, which you will find is an accurate description. Brian Collier, the site administrator, is quite diligent in keeping the site up-to-date with information about O'Connor along with bibliographies, essays, links to other sites, and O'Connor-related news. Make a point to visit this resourceful site at www.mediaspecialist.org.

Craig

Headed to Rome

I will be attending "Reason, Faith and Fiction: An International Flannery O'Connor Conference," hosted by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome, Italy, April 20-22. This is the fourth conference of Poetics & Christianity, an international forum for studying the intersection of artistic culture and expressions of religious faith, with a special emphasis on narrative and dramatic arts. I am presenting a paper titled "A View from the Woods: Preserving the Fortune of Andalusia." The paper will illustrate the similarities between the circumstances in O’Connor’s short story, “A View of the Woods”, and the developments that were taking place in the Milledgeville, Georgia area where O’Connor was living when she wrote the story. O’Connor presents Mr. Fortune as an ambitious landowner, driven by pride and domination, whose hunger for progress and personal acclaim blinds him to the pure beauty of the natural world. He believes his vision of the future is shared and validated by his granddaughter, Mary Fortune Pitts. Mr. Fortune’s canvas of the future is painted with deception, revenge, and even violence. I hope to demonstrate how the story pairs reckless commercial progress with greed and avarice, contrasting the irresponsible destruction of natural resources to the stewardship of preserving the rural landscape. Using this theme as an analogy, I will chart the rapid commercial and residential development surrounding Andalusia. Finally, the paper will briefly outline the steps that the Flannery O’Connor – Andalusia Foundation is taking to preserve the 524 acres in its stewardship and what effects, both good and bad, the encroaching development has and will have on Andalusia.

Craig

The Southern Literary Trail is blazin'

The TRAILFEST09 programs in Milledgeville for the Southern Literary Trail hosted by the Foundation and the Flannery O'Connor Review were a tremendous success. We have received reports from locations in all three states of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi of the terrific response to all the activities. The readings, lectures, and film screenings in Milledgeville attracted approximately 330 people. I would like to thank the Georgia Humanities Council and the Knight Fund for Milledgeville along with Arts Unlimited, the Office of Diversity & Multicultural Affairs, and the Creative Writing Program at Georgia College for their gracious sponsorship of these events. Bruce Gentry, editor of the Flannery O'Connor Review, was responsible for so much of the planning and coordination of the programs, for which I am extremely grateful. Lastly, I would like to thank the students, faculty, and community members who attended the programs and made TRAILFEST09 such a memorable occasion. Check out the details at www.southernliterarytrail.org

Craig

Thank you, Dave Perkins

Dave Perkins is a very talented musician, a record producer, an academic administrator, a good soul, and a friend of Andalusia. Over the last few decades, he has played and recorded with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Ray Charles and Willie Nelson. He recently organized a benefit concert for Andalusia at a club called Mercy Lounge in Nashville. He assembled some of the most talented singers, songwriters, musicians, and actors you will find anywhere for a magical night of music and a round table discussion the next day at Vanderbilt University where Dave is the Director of the Religion in the Arts and Contemporary Culture Program at the Divinity School. The performers were Old Black Kettle, Minton Sparks, Mary Gauthier, Over the Rhine, and Denice Hicks. Because of Dave's dedication to our efforts at Andalusia and through the generosity of these incredible performers and all the folks who came out to hear them, this event raised over $1,400 for the Foundation. It was tremendously inspiring for me to be in a room of several hundred people who have read O'Connor and really get it. I will never forget those two days in Nashville and will be forever in your debt, Dave Perkins. Thank you.

Craig

Thanks to Karin Slaughter

Our Foundation hosted an evening with Karin Slaughter last Monday night at the Milledgeville public library. The weather was horrible with plenty of mist and fog, but we still had a respectable group of over twenty people, some of whom are really big fans of Slaughter's work. It was actually a very intimate setting in the Special Collections Room of the library, with folks sitting around the large conference table, with Karin at the head of the table. She read from one of her short stories, which was quite a departure from her suspense novels. She fielded questions after her reading and talked about growing up in the Atlanta area and how it affected her writing. She was absolutely charming, very approachable, and obviously quite relaxed. I am grateful to the library for providing the venue and to Waldenbooks in Milledgeville for having books on hand for the guests to purchase and have signed by the author. Most of all, I am very thankful to Karin for her willingness to donate her time in coming down from Atlanta for this special event and wish her all kinds of success with her upcoming books.

Craig

Andalusia on Facebook

Okay, so I know Flannery O'Connor would be appalled by all the ways our Foundation is promoting her life and work, especially through the Internet. But I can't think of a better way to get younger readers interested in O'Connor, her literature, and Andalusia than through the electronic sources that dictate communication among the younger generation. The Foundation has had a very effective website up and running for about six years, which is a standard information medium for all ages now. We developed a MySpace page a few years ago, but of course, that is SO 2005 (as my youngest son made clear to me). In an effort to stay relevant, we have now created a Facebook account, thanks to one of our fine Georgia College student volunteers, Ali Duckworth. Check out our profile, Andalusia-Flannery O'Connor, and let us know what you think. We will use the account to inform all our "Facebook Friends" of the Foundation's upcoming events and activities, just as we have been doing with the website, direct emails, our Friends newsletter, and this blog. More than anything else, we hope to see you here at Andalusia, but if you can't get here (or until you can), visit us virtually anytime!

Craig