As we head toward the end of the semester, we're grateful for the enthusiasm across campus for all things Flannery! We've wrapped up two of our grants, and are planning for December and an amazing spring. Stay tuned for our inaugural Southern Gothic Lecture series in February, and our Flannery Centennial celebration in March. The birthday week will include a music festival, lectures, Wildcat screening, free tours of Andalusia Farm, and birthday cake. We can't wait to host you in Milledgeville March 25-29.

The Flannery O’Connor Institute for the Humanities offers the Jean M. and William C. Laidlaw Junior Scholar Fellowship to Flannery O’Connor scholars whose work would benefit from access to materials in Ina Dillard Russel Library’s Special Collections and the Collection of artifacts housed at Andalusia Museum, the former farm and home of Flannery O’Connor. Grants are awarded to junior scholars pursuing significant research that requires onsite use of materials housed in Russell Library’s Special Collections. These $2,000 grants are intended to provide support for travel and living expenses during the tenure of the grant. Applications are due Feb. 1, 2025. The application process is online.

If you couldn't make our Zoom talk by Interim Executive Director Dr. Katie Simon discussing the connections between race and mobility in one of Flannery O'Connor's most famous stories, you can catch the recording online!

Katie Simon, Georgia College, is associate professor of English and interim executive director of the Flannery O’Connor Institute for the Humanities. She has formerly coordinated the program in Women's and Gender Studies and the MA program in English. She is an assistant editor of the FLOCR. She earned her Ph.D. and her BA in English from UC-Berkeley, and her MA in English from Mills College. Her teaching and research interests examine the intersections between American literature, social justice, and the environment. Her work on Thoreau appears in ESQ, her work on O’Connor in Women’s Studies, and she’s published pedagogy pieces in Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life. She is co-editing a collection of essays, Forgotten Spaces: Environment and Social Justice in the U.S. South.

To join us for the online book club at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom, please register online.

Mark your calendar for the kickoff of our new lecture series featuring scholars of the Southern Gothic! These lectures will take place at the Georgia College Library's Pat Peterson Museum Education Room and be free and open to the public.

Dr. Sara Crosby, The Ohio State University - Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 5:00 p.m.

Dr. Teresa Goddu, of Vanderbilt University - Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 5:00 p.m.

We enjoyed scholar-in-residence Dr. Farrell O'Gorman's talk on how Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023), one of the most acclaimed American novelists of the last fifty years, is inextricably linked to Flannery O’Connor. McCarthy repeatedly praised her in the early years of his career–most substantially in his correspondence with Robert Coles, an influential Harvard child psychiatrist who wrote extensively on O’Connor while also acting as a patron to McCarthy.

In his fiction, McCarthy, like O’Connor, continually addressed certain recurrent philosophical and religious questions (e.g., regarding gnosticism) that are essential to understanding the two of them as not only Southern Gothic but American Gothic authors. Finally, their legacies have frequently overlapped in critically acclaimed films from the 1970s to the present, perhaps most complexly in the Oscar-winning Coen brothers film No Country for Old Men (2007). A recording of this talk is available on our Facebook page.

Check out our YouTube channel for recordings of our virtual events.

Check the Flannery at 100 website hub for up to date event information across the entire campus! Click the Flannery at 100 logo to see the year's events.

To reserve your copy, please mail a check or money order to

Bruce Gentry, Editor

Flannery O'Connor Review

English Dept., Campus Box 44

Georgia College

410 W. Greene St.

Milledgeville, GA 31061

To find the job posting directly through GCSU HR, go to gcsu.edu and click on "Jobs" at the top. Search job ID 279378 to find the job posting for the Open Rank Professor in American Literature with Specialization in Flannery O'Connor Studies role.

The English Department at Georgia College and State University is hiring an open rank scholar specializing in American literature, particularly contemporary and Southern literature. The candidate must hold a doctorate in American literature, have teaching experience across various course levels, and a strong record of scholarly publication. Responsibilities include teaching courses like Introduction to American Literature and Flannery O'Connor, developing new courses, and editing the Flannery O'Connor Review. The role also involves administrative duties, such as managing the journal, overseeing graduate assistants, and handling financial matters. The successful candidate will collaborate with various campus entities related to O'Connor's legacy, including the Flannery O'Connor Institute and Andalusia Farm.