Flannery O’Connor’s fiction has frequently been described as “grotesque,” and the author herself considered whether her work fit the description. In fiction of the grotesque, the focus is on the strange and ugly, often as an aspect of the physical body. It can also encompass themes of horror, death, and violence, with abhorrent characters.
At the end of the day, O’Connor preferred her work be considered realism, rather than grotesque or gothic.
Some of those who have analyzed the stories in her classic short story collection, A Good Man is Hard to Find, have begged to differ, but we’ll let the author herself have the last word. Excerpted from her essay “The Grotesque in Southern Fiction”: Read More→
Daphne du Maurier was a British novelist, playwright, and short story writer. She grew up in a creative family, which inspired her to write from a young age. Here you’ll find a selection of words of wisdom and quotes by Daphne du Maurier, the author who brought us these and other mid-twentieth century classics.
Photo above right courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
After publishing her first novel, The Loving Spirit, at age 22 she went on to write among other classic works Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, and the haunting story that became a terrifying Hitchcock film, The Birds.
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Edna Ferber (1885 – 1968), the prolific American novelist and playwright, began her career as a newspaper reporter in Appleton, Wisconsin. Following is a selection of quotes by Edna Ferber on writing and living.
Her stories were slices of Americana, ranging far from the events and experiences of her own life.
As a Jewish woman and and daughter of immigrants, she didn’t shy away from weaving issues of gender, class, and race into her colorful sagas. Many of her novels were adapted into films and Broadway shows. Read More→
Quicksand is a 1928 novel by Nella Larsen (1891 – 1964) based on the author’s personal experiences with what was called “the color line.” This sensitive novel came just one year before her masterwork, the 1929 short novel Passing.
Helga Crane, the main character, is the mixed-race daughter of a white Danish mother and a black father, as Larsen was. The plot takes her back and forth from Denmark, “Naxos” (a thinly veiled version of the Tuskegee Institute, where Larsen worked briefly), and Harlem.
Wherever Helga goes, she fails to find a community in which she can be comfortable with who she is. Read More→
Though “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston is a short story of only 4,743 words long (about 15 pages), the scope of the work reaches farther than most novels. Read the full text of “Sweat” here.
Within this small space, Hurston addresses a number of themes, such as the trials of femininity, which she explores with compelling and efficient symbolism.
Originally published in 1926, it is nuanced and eloquently compact, with Hurston maximizing each word, object, character, and plot point to create an impassioned and enlightening narrative. Read More→
Eleanor Estes was a children’s book author/illustrator, a librarian, and a recipient of the Newbery Medal. Following is a selection of quotes by Eleanor Estes from her best known classic books for kids.
Many of Estes’ stories are based on her personal childhood. experiences. Her first book, The Moffats, was published in 1941, followed closely by The Middle Moffat, and Rufus M.
The Moffats series was an immediate success, both at home and abroad, semi-autobiographical tales of the author’s own childhood. Another of her classics is The Hundred Dresses (1944).
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Jessie Redmon Fauset was a novelist and poet associated with the Harlem Renaissance. She was also a teacher of languages and editor for The Crisis magazine of the NAACP.
She also contributed her own writings — editorials, poetry, short stories, translations from the French of writings by black authors from Europe and Africa, as well as accounts of her worldwide travels.
Such was her influence that Fauset has long been considered one of the “midwives” of the Harlem Renaissance literary and artistic movement of the 1920s.
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Djuna Barnes (1892 – 1982) was a singular voice in the literary world, best know for her experimental novel, Nightwood. Often viewed as eccentric and morbid, it’s no wonder that quotes by Djuna Barnes can be described the same way.
Early in her career, Barnes became a freelance journalist and illustrator for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and in just one year she became a renowned feature reporter, interviewer, and illustrator.
She left for Paris in 1920, and continuing her work as a journalist, she interviewed expatriate writers and artists. Continuing to pursue her own writing, she established herself as a literary figure in her own right, producing plays, short stories, and poems. Read More→
