A giant of American Catholicism is about to have her own stamp.
The US Postal Service announced yesterday that Flannery O’Connor, the southern Catholic writer known for her sharply drawn characters experiencing moments of grace in otherwise dark situations, will be featured on a 93-cent stamp.
O’Connor’s image is based on a black-and-white photo from her days as a student at the Georgia State College for Women, where she graduated in 1945. The background is comprised of peacock feathers in homage to the collection of exotic birds she raised at her family’s Georgia farm.
Perhaps most famous for her collection of short stories, O’Connor published A Good Man is Hard to Find in 1955. She also published more than 120 book reviews for Georgia’s Catholic newspaper newspaper, The Bulletin. Those reviews were published as a collection in The Presence of Grace in 2008.
In 2013, O’Connor’s written devotions to God were published in A Prayer Journal, offering an intimate look into the writer’s struggles with her faith and how she articulated that in her writing.
O’Connor died of lupus-related causes in 1964 at age 39.
The O’Connor stamp is the latest in the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series, launched in 1979 with the 15-cent John Steinbeck stamp. O’Connor’s stamp, the 30th in the series, is for 3-ounce packages, part of the new collection of “Forever” stamps that do not lose value even if the cost of postage increases.
