SOUTHERN LITERARY TRAIL

Without even realizing I was on a literary tour, I've visited several of the spots:

Eudora Welty's house in Jackson
Faulkner's in Oxford
And now Flannery O'Connor's last family home in Milledgeville, GA.

Having reread THE HABIT OF BEING last winter, I set my sights on visiting Flannery O'Connor's hometown. Fortunately we have gracious friends who grew up in Milledgeville. Our host had even spent time sitting on the front porch of Andalusia as a young boy fascinated/ freaked by the peacocks a while back. Great tour guides. I hope we get invited back to explore via the trolley and poke around inside the church where the evil General Sherman stabled his horses. (Oh, the horror!)

Call me a southern author groupie if you must, but something about seeing how O'Connor faced her typewriter to the wall so as not to be tempted by the beauty of nature outside her first floor window spoke to me. Though how she plotted to the tune of peacocks remains a mystery.

Eudora Welty's garden and home are must-see spots in Jackson.
Oxford, MS, sports a statue of Faulkner on the Square, though he was not universally loved by his home state.
A great way to travel the south. I plan to check out a few more spots on the Southern Literary Trail.

Who out there's visited some of the many author birthplaces, homes, gardens open to the public?
Inspiration? Voyeurism? An excuse to eat fried okra and turnip greens at your author's favorite cafe?


Here's a post from my reading of The Habit of Being.
And another, here- random thoughts about writing like Flannery.