Fall Lecture Series begins Saturday Oct. 3 with acclaimed novelist A. Manette Ansay

FLANNERY O’CONNOR CHILDHOOD HOME
FALL 2009 LECTURE SERIES
All lectures are FREE and take place at 3 p.m. in the parlor at the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home, 207 E. Charlton Street. 

SATURDAY (all other dates are Sunday), October 3 – A. Manette Ansay on "Flannery and Facebook: The Influence of O'Connor in My Daily Writing Life" 
Reading and talk by acclaimed author and University of Miami professor A. Manette Ansay (Vinegar Hill, Midnight Champagne, Blue Water). Her latest novel, Good Things I Wish You, melds the story of a modern-day relationship with the dramatic story of Clara Schumann, her husband composer Robert Schumann, and their good friend the composer Johannes Brahms. Good Things I Wish You will be available for purchase and signing after the talk.

Sunday, October 18 - Woody Belangia, Ph.D. on “Who Do You Think You Are? Idolatry and Identity in ‘Parker's Back’”
Discussion of the classic O’Connor story with Woody Belangia, Professor of Philosophy at August State University. We encourage all attendees to read the story before attending this lively and provocative lecture and discussion.

Sunday, October 25 - Pat West on “Roots, Rivers, and Rhetoric: The Homegrown Writings of Savannah's James Alan McPherson” 
Pat West, Head of the English Dept., at Savannah Technical College, will address the cultural and place imprints of Georgia upon the fiction of the internationally known author – and Savannah native – who in 1978 became the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Sunday, Nov. 8: Mary Doll, Ph.D. on “O’Connor’s Hard Headed Women”
Doll, a Professor of English at the Savannah College of Art & Design, specializes in myth and modern literature and has written four books, including Beckett and Myth: An Archetypal Approach and To the Lighthouse and Back: Writings on Teaching and Living. 

Sunday, November 15 – Randy Malamud, Ph.D. on “The Literary Tourist”
Randy Malamud, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Chair of Modern Literature, Ecocriticism and Cultural Studies at Georgia Southern University, discusses the curious reverence that readers pay to the sites where authors lived. 

Sunday, December 13 - Bob Strozier reads Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”
One of the founding members of the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home and a retired professor of English from AASU, Bob Strozier returns for his traditional reading of “A Christmas Memory.” Don’t miss this much-loved annual holiday tradition!

September hours and Guild meeting times

The Childhood Home will be closed from the 21st thru 25th this September. Please call 912.233.6014 if you would like to schedule a tour during that time frame or email billdawers@comcast.net.

The intial meetings for the Peacock Guild book club and writers salon were great successes. Please note the following schedule for September:

Writers salon - Fiction only: Meet on the 8th at 7:30 p.m.

Book club: Meet on the 15th at 7:30 p.m.

Writers salon - All other genre: Meet on the 22nd at 7:30 p.m.

Street parking only. No pets, please, unless it's a backward walking chicken, of course, and then only with prior approval . . . .