All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

Workshop director Paul Engle was the first to read and comment on the initial drafts of what would become Wise Blood. O'Connor wrote: "Grace changes us and change is painful. She entered Georgia State College for Women (now Georgia College & State University) in an accelerated three-year program and graduated in June 1945 with a Social Sciences degree.

S. Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25 1925 – August 3 1964) was an American writer and essayist. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters.