* In another mood on another occasion Flannery O’Connor began as follows: “I have very little to say about short-story writing. It’s one thing to write short stories and another thing to talk about writing them, and I hope you realize that your asking me to talk about story-writing is just like asking a fish to lecture on swimming. The more stories I write, the more mysterious I find the process and the less I find myself capable of analyzing it. Before I started writing stories, I suppose I could have given you a pretty good lecture on the subject, but nothing produces silence like experience, and at this point I have very little to say about how stories are written.”
* I.e., in 1962. These remarks were made by Flannery O’Connor at Hollins College, Virginia, to introduce a reading of her story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” on October 14, 1963.
* This note was written to introduce the second edition of the novel in 1962.
* From letters written to Winifred McCarthy, published in Fresco, Vol. I, No. 2, University of Detroit, February, 1961.
* The hero of The Violent Bear It Away.
† A disciple of Hazel Motes in Wise Blood.
* At Sweetbriar College, Virginia, in March, 1963.
Mystery and Manners Page 16
