10/16/2026
Flannery O’Connor’s Book Club is meeting this Sunday October 18th to discuss two short stories, “Noon Wine” and “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”, by Katherine Anne Porter.
In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author, Katherine Anne Porter was a good friend with good manners—as recorded in the excerpt below from Flannery O’Connor’s letter to Cecil Dawkins on November 8th, 1960.
“Katherine Anne remembered to inquire about a chicken of mine that she had met here two years before. I call that really having a talent for winning friends and influencing people when you remember to inquire for a chicken that you met two years before. She was so sorry that it was night and she wouldn’t get to see him again as she had particularly wanted to. I call that social grace...” (“The Habit of Being” edited by Sally Fitzgerald).
Gelatin silver print of Katherine Anne Porter by George Platt Lynes (1936). Image copyright of Estate of George Platt Lynes NPG.94.268.