U. S. Postal Service Issues Commemorative Stamp Honoring Flannery O'Connor

Today, June 5, 2015, the United States Postal Service is issuing a commemorative stamp honoring Flannery O'Conner. It is the 30th stamp in the Literary Arts series. O’Connor penned unsettling, darkly comic stories, in a Southern Gothic style, about how the potential for enlightenment and grace are available to both saint and sinner. She wrote two novels, "The Violent Bear It Away" and "Wise Blood," 32 short stories, a number of reviews and commentaries. O’Connor was a three-time winner of the O. Henry Award and posthumous winner of the 1972 National Book Award for Fiction for "The Complete Stories." She relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. Her writing reflected her deeply held Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of belief and morality. The stamp shows O’Connor surrounded by peacock feathers—in homage to O’Connor’s love for the birds that she tended on her mother’s farm. She wrote about them in a 1961 essay entitled "The King of Birds." According to the Savannah Morning News:

The color portrait on this stamp, a watercolor painting completed digitally, is based on a black-and-white photograph taken when O’Connor was a student at the Georgia State College for Women from 1942 to 1945. Surrounding O’Connor are peacock feathers, a symbol often associated with the author. (More about Flannery O'Connor's love of peacocks here.)

In addition to being intended for three ounce mail, the Flannery O’Connor stamp is a Forever stamp.

I submit to you two more links and a video pertaining to Ms. O'Conner whom I hope will one day be canonized a Saint.

Flannery O'Connor Reads "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (1959)