I’d forgotten about Flannery, but when I saw her name on the wall, it all made sense: the flagged email, the memorial service eulogy, the patio table where I ate lunch.
On a small white plaque outside Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, the words caught my attention: “I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing. – Flannery O’Connor.”*
So it’s you, Flannery. I laughed to myself. She was the common thread, drawing me back into the writer’s life I had once been so dedicated to.
The Legacy of Flannery O’Connor
Long before I even knew what writing was, Flannery** wrote her last story, dying at only 39 in 1964. In her brief life, her novels and short stories left a notable mark on American literature. Her best-known works, including “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Wise Blood,” showcase her talent with irony, dark humor, and symbolic imagery.
Although I have never written in that style, the way she crafted words into complex and captivating stories has always inspired me.
It’s no surprise that she is honored by an anonymous donor’s plaque at a venue dedicated to literary arts. What’s surprising is that I noticed it when I did, just one week after my father’s service.
He Has Never Stopped Believing
Even in his final months, Dad always asked if I was still writing. I didn’t exactly lie when I told him yes, but I knew he was referring to creative endeavors, not the contracted business writing I do. He loved reading my essays, and I didn’t want to disappoint him, but it had been a while, and I had no good excuse for why.
Apparently, death gave him no excuse to stop prodding me. At Dad’s celebration of life service, his younger brother recalled from the pulpit how Dad proudly called me his writer. I shook my head and looked up to the chapel’s pointed ceiling. Okay, Dad, I hear you.
Sign Up and Show Up
It was the gentle nudge I needed to reopen the Lighthouse Writers email about a short story fest I had flagged a few months earlier. I’d been putting it off, unsure if I could or should make that financial investment in myself. My partner, my therapist, and my inner child kept telling me, “Yes, you’re worth it, do it.” The day after the service, I finally clicked ‘Register Now’ and submitted payment to attend two days of writing classes and author panels.
Six days later, I walked into Lighthouse Writers feeling like a used, dried-out sponge, ready to absorb everything I could. Still, a nagging voice in my head taunted me, You don’t belong here. You will never rise to the level of these writers.
A white plaque on the low brick wall outside Lighthouse Writers Workshop caught my attention.
Nonetheless, I took notes, did the writing prompts, and even read some of my musings aloud. When it was time to break for lunch, I was anxious to step outside with my laptop and keep writing.
I retreated to a shaded patio spot located just outside the front entrance. Between bites of my soggy turkey sandwich and sour mandarin slices, I typed a few sentences before glancing around as if more creative thoughts might be swirling in the air, free for the taking. That’s when I noticed the few dozen plaques mounted along the low brick wall separating the patio from the sidewalk, with Flannery’s plaque positioned right across from my table.
The Treasure of a Book
I could sense Dad winking, acknowledging the Flannery O’Connor book he had gifted me, maybe 20 years ago, to encourage my creative writing. The pesky inner voices segued into uplifting whispers. You do belong here. You can write.
When I got home, I made it my mission to find the book on one of my crowded bookshelves. It wasn’t on the first two where I looked, but on the third, I spotted the thick paperback with the words “Flannery O’Connor The Complete Stories” on the spine.
The most inspiring words in this book are the words penned by Dad.
I pulled it out, like I’d found a treasure, and I had. Inside the front cover was a note from Dad in big, sloppy cursive letters. His penmanship had always been horrible, a trait I inherited. My eyes welled up as I traced the letters:
“For Lisa, Our writer and much loved daughter. You mean much to us and than more than that…Love, Dad.”
I chuckled as my proofreading mind corrected his first use of “than” to “then.” Maybe, though, his error was meant as a message to me: Lisa, just get the words on the page; grammar be damned.
I returned to the second day of the workshop with a renewed passion to write, as well as another sack lunch to enjoy at the table with an inspiring view.
Oh, Flannery, I, too, take it all as a blessing.
* The quote is from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor.
**Mary Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was a Southern Gothic writer renowned for her sharp, often unsettling short stories and novels, which explored themes of morality, grace, and the grotesque. Flannery O’Connor infused her deeply Catholic worldview into her fiction, frequently placing flawed characters in violent or bizarre situations that forced moments of spiritual reckoning.