Flannery O’Connor to Grace New U.S. Postage Stamp

Since 1979, the US Postal Ser­vice has made a prac­tice of issu­ing postage stamps hon­or­ing “skill­ful word­smiths” who have “spun our favorite tales — and Amer­i­can his­to­ry along with them.” Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Wright, Julia De Bur­gos, Mark Twain, O. Hen­ry, and Ralph Elli­son have all been fêt­ed since 2009. And soon we can add the South­ern Goth­ic writer Flan­nery O’Con­nor to the list. Her stamp will make its debut on June 5th. Until then, we’d encour­age you to stream rare record­ings of O’Con­nor read­ing her famous sto­ry, ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’, and her wit­ty essay, “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in South­ern Fic­tion.” These are the only known record­ings of O’Con­nor read­ing her work, and they pro­vide a won­der­ful intro­duc­tion to O’Con­nor’s lit­er­ary tal­ents.

via LA Times

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Flan­nery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960)

Flan­nery O’Connor to Lit Pro­fes­sor: “My Tone Is Not Meant to Be Obnox­ious. I’m in a State of Shock”

Flan­nery O’Connor’s Satir­i­cal Car­toons: 1942–1945