Editing Flannery O'Connor (section)

==Early life and education==
[[File:Flannery oconnor home.jpg|thumb|[[Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home|O'Connor's childhood home]] in Savannah, Georgia]]

===Childhood===
O'Connor was born on March 25, 1925, in [[Savannah, Georgia]], the only child of Edward Francis O'Connor, a real estate agent, and Regina Cline, both of [[Irish Americans|Irish]] descent.{{sfnm |1a1=O'Connor |1y=1979 |1p=3 |2a1=O'Connor |2y=1979 |2p=233 |2ps=: "My papa was a real-estate man" (letter to [[Elizabeth Fenwick Way]], August 4, 1957) |3a1=Gooch |3y=2009 |3p=29}}<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.ie/regionals/goreyguardian/out-about/focus-on-flannery-oconnor-at-write-by-the-sea-38201264.html|title=Focus on Flannery O'Connor at Write by the Sea|website=independent|date=June 14, 2019 |language=en|access-date=2020-03-13}}</ref> As an adult, she remembered herself as a "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex".<ref>{{harvnb|Gooch|2009|p=30}}; {{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Blake |title=Between the House and the Chicken Yard |journal=[[Virginia Quarterly Review]] |issue=Spring 2009 |pages=202–205 |url=http://www.vqronline.org/between-house-and-chicken-yard |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602052313/http://www.vqronline.org/between-house-and-chicken-yard |archive-date=June 2, 2016 |url-status=live |mode=cs2}}.</ref> The [[Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home]] museum is located at 207 E. Charlton Street on Lafayette Square.

In 1940, O'Connor and her family moved to [[Milledgeville, Georgia]], where they initially lived with her mother's family at the so-called 'Cline Mansion,' in town.<ref>{{cite web |title=Andalusia Farm – Home of Flannery O'Connor |website=Andalusia Farm |url=http://andalusiafarm.org/ |access-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref> In 1937, her father was diagnosed with [[systemic lupus erythematosus]], which led to his eventual death on February 1, 1941.{{sfn|Giannone|2012|p=23}}  O'Connor and her mother continued to live in Milledgeville.{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=3}} In 1951, they moved to Andalusia Farm,<ref>{{cite web|title=Flannery O'Connor|url=http://andalusiafarm.org/flannery-oconnor-2/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417201404/http://andalusiafarm.org/flannery-oconnor-2/|archive-date=April 17, 2016|access-date=May 12, 2016|website=Andalusia Farm}}</ref> which is now a museum dedicated to O'Connor's work.

===Schooling===
O'Connor attended Peabody High School, where she worked as the school newspaper's art editor and from which she graduated in 1942.{{sfn|Gooch|2009|p=76}} She entered Georgia State College for Women (now [[Georgia College & State University]]) in an accelerated three-year program and graduated in June 1945 with a [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] in sociology and English literature. While at Georgia College, she produced a significant amount of cartoon work for the student newspaper.{{r|Wild (2011)|Heintjes (2014)}} Many critics have claimed that the idiosyncratic style and approach of these early cartoons shaped her later fiction in important ways.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/07/06/flannery-oconnor-cartoonist/|title=Flannery O'Connor, Cartoonist|last=Moser|first=Barry|date=2012-07-06|website=The New York Review of Books|language=en|access-date=2019-03-12}}</ref>{{sfn|Gooch|2009}}

[[File:Robie with Flannery 1947.jpg|thumb|O'Connor with [[Arthur Koestler]] (left) and [[Robie Macauley]] on a visit to the [[Amana Colonies]] in 1947]]
In 1945, she was accepted into the prestigious [[Iowa Writers' Workshop]] at the [[University of Iowa]], where she went, at first, to study journalism. While there, she got to know several important writers and critics who lectured or taught in the program, among them [[Robert Penn Warren]], [[John Crowe Ransom]], [[Robie Macauley]], [[Austin Warren (scholar)|Austin Warren]] and [[Andrew Nelson Lytle|Andrew Lytle]].{{r|Gordon}} Lytle, for many years editor of the ''[[Sewanee Review]]'', was one of the earliest admirers of her fiction. He later published several of her stories in the ''Sewanee Review'', as well as critical essays on her work. Workshop director [[Paul Engle]] was the first to read and comment on the initial drafts of what would become ''[[Wise Blood]]''. She received an [[Master of Fine Arts|M.F.A.]] from the University of Iowa in 1947.{{sfn|Fitzgerald|1965|p=xii}} After completing her degree, she remained at the Iowa Writers' Workshop for another year on a fellowship.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://litcity.lib.uiowa.edu/person/flannery-oconnor/ | title=LitCity }}</ref> During her time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she dropped the name Mary, which gave her the impression of an "Irish washwoman", and became Flannery O'Connor.<ref name="Elie#" /> During the summer of 1948, O'Connor continued to work on ''Wise Blood'' at [[Yaddo]], an artists' community in [[Saratoga Springs, New York]], where she also completed several short stories.{{sfn|Gooch|2009|pp=146–52}}

In 1949, O'Connor met and eventually accepted an invitation to stay with [[Robert Fitzgerald]] (a well-known translator of the classics) and his wife, Sally, in [[Ridgefield, Connecticut]].{{sfn|O'Connor|1979|p=4}}