As this collection of interviews shows, Flannery O'Connor's fiction, though bound to a particular time and place, embodies and reveals universal ideas. O'Connor's curiosity about human nature and its various manifestations compelled her to explore mysterious places in the mind and heart. Despite her short life and prolonged illness, O'Connor was interviewed in a variety of times and locations. The circumstances of the interviews did not seem to matter much to O'Connor; her approach and demeanor remained consistent. Her self-knowledge was always apparent, in her confidence in herself, in...

This collection of essays, reviews, speeches, and interviews details the interaction among a number of Southwestern women writers, including Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O'Connor, Anne Tyler, Alice Walker, and Josephine Humphreys. Occupation, gender, and region conspire to join these authors in kinship, and, like family members, they offer criticism, support, admiration, and understanding to one another. This anthology will be useful both in the college classroom and for the general reader. It is sure to enlighten, entertain,...