"Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”
And:
“Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
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Flannery O'Connor (born 3/25/1925 died at age 39 from Lupus)
I love her work, primarily short stories.
A Good Man is Hard to Find is a classic -
https://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html