Flannery O’Connor (1925–64) is one of America’s most celebrated authors. The two novels and many stories she fashioned are filled with freaks, reprobates, ingrates, wayward prophets, ignorant know-it-alls, invalids, tricksters, misfits, killers?even a homicidally inclined bull. Yet these uncanny writings continue to intrigue audiences and critics alike. So how does the writer take her witch’s brew of assorted blight and turn it into inspired storytelling? Furthermore, what do her comic irony, sudden reversals, and disquieting instances of violence ultimately signify? And what does any of this have to do with dragons? To consider such questions, we will explore four of O’Connor’s signature stories: “Good Country People,” “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” and “Judgment Day.” Each of them strikingly amalgamates tenets of Roman Catholic doctrine, elements of submerged biography, textual allusions to Biblical narratives and the tawdry horrors of the Southern Gothic tradition. At their core, O’Connor’s fictions are more than well-crafted literary creations that captivate us aesthetically. They also possess contemporary relevance, especially for a skeptical age like ours that often seems to lack spiritual awareness and that, from O’Connor’s perspective, all too frequently closes its eyes to the irruption of the sacred into daily life. For what concerns us here, no prior experience of O’Connor is required. Just read the stories, think about them, and join the conversation.