Mary Helen Stefaniak

Reading from my novel in Flannery O’Connor’s dining room at Andalusia was unlike any thing I’ve ever done before: standing at the podium in one corner of the dining room, the big oak dining table pushed against the fireplace to make room for rows of motley chairs, with a few lucky spots on the sofa and settee (the very one where O Connor is sitting in a famous photograph), a little overflow seating out in the front hall and up the steps, and, most important, my mother in a folding chair in the corner opposite from mine, giving me the eye.

I felt as though Flannery was there, too--and that she didn't mind at all that we had all dropped in on her.

Many thanks to Craig Amason and the Andalusia Foundation for this opportunity to fulfill a dream.