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Life Timeline (1954-1956)

1954 From February to May makes lecture appearances with Tennessee Williams. Lectures on fiction writing and drama at Goucher College on February 17. Travels to Charleston to visit friends in late February. During spring Marguerite Smith breaks hip. Carson returns to Nyack from Yaddo. Marguerite admitted to nursing home. Carson travels to Charlotte, North Carolina, to visit friends in late March. Returns to Yaddo from Charlotte on April 19. Lectures at Poetry Center of the Young Men and Young Women's Hebrew Association in New York City on May 8. At Yaddo from April 20 to July 3, completes first draft of The Square Root of Wonderful. Meets Marilyn Monroe in New York City. Spends time in New York City at the home of Robert and Hilda Marks. Marguerite Smith returns to Nyack home from nursing home. Ida Reeder hired as housekeeper.
1955 Vacations with Tennessee Williams in Key West in April. Works on three manuscripts then in progress: dramatization of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, The Square Root of Wonderful, and Clock Without Hands. With Williams spends weekend in Cuba. "Who Has Seen the Wind?", a short story version of The Square Root of Wonderful", completed in May. Carson's mother, Marguerite Water Smith, dies in Nyack on June 10. Marguerite Waters Smith's obituary appears in the June 13 New York Times. "The Haunted Boy" published simultaneously in Mademoiselle and Botteghe Oscure in November.
1956 Ill during much of year, paralyzed left arm becomes increasingly painful and drawn. Works with Saint Subber on the revision of play The Square Root of Wonderful. "Who Has Seen the Wind?" published in September Mademoiselle.




Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, 1519 Stark Avenue, Columbus, Georgia, 31906
(706) 568-2054
Created By Patricia Gilbert