Wunderkind Carson McCullers presents excerpts from Carson McCullers’s most important works and traces her short and dazzling life. Her debut novel, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” catapulted her to fame in the New York literary scene in the spring of 1940. At the tender age of 23, this southern-born author published a novel that resonated with outsiders in her society, becoming a global bestseller. Despite her short life, which was marked by serious illnesses, McCullers left behind a relatively small but powerful oeuvre. Often referred to as the “author of loneliness,” her works continue to address contemporary issues such as racism, the search for identity, homosexuality, feminism, and more.

About The Carson McCullers Center: The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Carson McCullers; to nurturing artists and educating young people; and to fostering literary, musical, artistic, and intellectual culture in the United States and abroad. The Center operates a house museum-artist residency space in McCullers's childhood home in Columbus, Georgia, and an events-artist residency space in her adult home in Nyack, New York; offers fellowships for writers, artists, musicians, scholars, and filmmakers; presents educational and cultural programs in both Columbus and Nyack; and maintains an ever-growing archive of materials related to the life and work of Carson McCullers.

Speakers:

Nick Norwood, PhD
Dr. Norwood is a professor of creative writing and the director of CSU’s Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians. His poems have appeared in over 50 national and international journals, anthologies, and public broadcasts—including the PBS News Hour site Art Beat and on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor. He has published three full volumes of poetry and, in collaboration with artist Erika Adams, two limited-edition, fine press books

Orlando Montoya
Orlando Montoya was the Savannah-based news producer for GPB from 1998-2014.  He won numerous awards for reporting on coastal issues during that time.  In 2022, now in Atlanta, he returned to GPB as the statewide newscaster producer.  He studied Radio-Television at the University of Central Florida and has worked at six radio stations in Florida and Georgia.

If you have specific accessibility needs, please fill out this form and someone from GPB will contact you shortly.