All,

This fall has been exciting for Andalusia Institute. During the summer, we hosted 24 Flannery O’Connor scholars from all across the country, spending a month in Milledgeville. As a result, we have featured some of these scholars and their exciting research in our own programming. These projects range from a Flannery O’Connor database, to new research around Flannery O’Connor’s time on the farm, to a new Bluegrass album of songs inspired by Flannery O’Connor.

Additionally, we have been in talks with the Flannery O’Connor Trust to discuss preliminary plans for the centenary celebration of Flannery O’Connor’s birthday (March 25th, 2025) which will be here before any of us realizes it. In the midst of this, there is much excitement for the new Flannery O’Connor biopic, "Wildcat," directed by Ethan Hawke and starring Maya Hawke.

Finally, there has been a flurry of activity and projects, outlined in this newsletter, from the Andalusia Institute. Check out our podcast, drop by our online book club, or take the online fieldtrip of Flannery O’Connor’s Milledgeville. If you have any questions, comments, or recommendations, please feel free to reach out to me (Jordan.cofer@gcsu.edu).

Thank you,

Jordan Cofer, Interim Executive Director, Andalusia Institute

The NEH Oral History project "Flannery O'Connor and Milledgeville: Collecting the Past" will host a virtual kick-off event Thursday, November 2. Dr. Stephanie Opperman will speak with Sandra Worsham, a writer and retired high school teacher, about the oral history project she directed with Baldwin High School students. The Milken Family Foundation published the collection of stories in Everybody Has a Story to Tell: Stories of Flannery O’Connor’s Milledgeville (1999).

The event will take place virtually from 6:00-7:00 p.m. To register and receive the Zoom link, sign up on our Smartsheet.

Dr. Stephanie Opperman will host two in-person oral history workshops in Milledgeville. Thursday, October 12 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at Mary Vinson Memorial Library and Thursday, November 9 from 6-7 p.m. at the Andalusia Interpretive Center. This free, hour-long workshop will introduce participants to preparation, recording, transcription, and archival organization of oral histories.

If you have any suggestions for people to interview and/or your own experiences with Milledgeville and/or Flannery to share, please email stephanie.opperman@gcsu.edu.

We're thrilled to offer writing and podcasting workshops to fifth graders this fall! Through our partnership with CREATE, Inc. and Twin Lakes Libraries of Middle Georgia Regional Library System, we offer classes in the evenings and on Saturdays for students to explore their creativity.

CREATE:

Tuesday/Thursday, 6:00-7:00 p.m.

Contact CREATE to register

Mary Vinson Memorial Library:

Tuesday/Thursday, 5:30-6:30 p.m. (creative writing)

Saturday, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (podcasting)

Register online or show up to the children's theater!

Parents/guardians should attend workshops with students. Registration is free and materials are provided!

We will meet in person at the Georgia Writers Museum on the square in Eatonton, Georgia, to discuss Flannery O'Connor's letters as published in "The Habit of Being and/or Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works." You should find that these books are readily available, and I'm confident that the GWM will soon be able to sell you a copy of either or both. It won't matter (much) whether you are reading from "Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works" or from "The Habit of Being: Letters" (a longer, fuller collection), since what we'll be doing is sharing thoughts on our favorite O'Connor letters as we try to figure out how O'Connor's correspondence reveals her personality and teaches us things about her fiction.

Hope to see you in Eatonton! The coffeeshop next to the GWM is now open, so I hope you'll

join me in buying some coffee and pastry. And feel free to bring along a friend; our book club

meetings are free and open to the public.

If you would like to join the afternoon (4:30-5:30 p.m.) or evening (7-8 p.m.) sessions to discuss these letters, contact Tammie Burke of Andalusia Institute at tammie.burke@gcsu.edu so she can send you the Zoom link.

Bruce Gentry, Andalusia Institute Fellow