This is the story of the day we toured the Georgia Writers Museum. As we so often do, we headed off looking for something else and found ourselves parked in front of it. We’re always looking for interesting trips to put guests onto. We found the place to be delightful, and for a certain type of guest, a very nice day trip.

We do this sort of thing often, as practitioners of the therapy called “Backroad Travel.” In this activity, you get a change of scenery. It is also good because we want to figure out what is in the area.

What is the Georgia Writers Museum?

The Georgia Writers Museum, which is in Eatonton, honors Georgia’s literary heritage. Its stated mission is to “inspire today’s writers and readers”. It honors the three hometown authors, Joel Chandler Harris, Alice Walker, and Flannery O’Connor.

They’re working on a neighboring coffee shop. We also like this because we’re always looking for places of inspiration on a rainy day. It’s on the Eatonton Square, which is about 20 miles from Madison.

The day they were there, it was a Tuesday. They were supposed to be closed, but we pressed our noses on the glass door. The people inside tidying the place for the construction project let us in and gave us a personal tour. Things like happen fairly often to us, because we try. We didn’t go on about how we were published authors, but that is fine.

The hours, by the way, are Wednesday by appointment. On Thursday and Friday 10AM-4 PM, Saturday, 10AM-4PM and supposedly closed the rest of the time.

Upcoming Events

Before we get too much farther into the story, we know that the Writers Museum has a series of “meet the author” events and other types of workshops.

Feel free to click the link below to get information, because these change all the time. We want to keep you more or less up to date.

The Georgia Writers Hall of Fame

This Hall of Fame is run by UGA, and there are 76 current members, and there is a hall of fame exhibit at the Georgia Writers Museum. This is an interesting and varied group, and includes some of the famous politicians, Civil Rights people, a US President, and other illustrious characters.

Famous Writers from the Eatonton Area

Well, we’ve been here before, and this time we’re less conflicted, because they have honored Alice Walker here. She wrote “The Color Purple” which was turned into an Academy Award winning movie. There are also exhibits on Joel Chandler Harris, and Flannery O’Connor.

We wrote about Joel Chandler Harris in the article which we’ve linked below. This fellow’s main contribution to literature was “The Tales of Brer Rabbit”. There has been controversy because it is felt that these stories were culturally appropriated from some of the local population.

Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, and was a famous fiction writer. Her book “Complete Stories” received the US National Book Award in 1972. She lived nearby in Milledgeville until her death in 1964. Her work was known for her emphasis of the “grotesque” including quirky morally flawed characters, who were often disabled. Ironically, she has also become controversial, and a dorm named after her at the University of Maryland was recently renamed. A lot of her work is racially charged, and highlights the attitudes of the small town southerners, because it was part of her world.

You can get the story of that by following the link below.

Typewriters

Millennial Update: There was a device called the “typewriter” which was invented in the 19^th century. It was used by people whose handwriting was illegible. It’s the gadget that the “typo” was named after.

It was replaced at about the time you were born by “word processing” which corrects your spelling, and otherwise processes your book manuscript professionally. Artificial intelligence will replace it all at some point and you will read about robots that toured the Georgia Writers Museum and had flawed characters.

The writers museum has an interesting collection of old typewriters on display for the curious.

We told you about the events going on at the museum and we will try to make it back down there to get further inspiration.

Stop 2: The Famous Peches Stand

Since it is Pech season, and it was open, we did stop at the second most famous building in Georgia, the Peches Stand. This place is ironically well known from the internet meme “Each state summed up in one photo”

On that day, ironically, there were no “peches.” The supply had been sold out over the weekend, and all they had was some preserves, that were made in Montana, and some “Tomatoes” which we have plenty of at our place.

So what was brilliant, but probably inadvertent marketing has backfired in this case. Here they got some tourists to stop at their place, and didn’t have the product.

Stop 3: The Farmview Market for some Sunflowers

Since it was on the way, lunch consisted of some comfort food (salmon burger) and some other refreshments.

What is going on at this place is that for $1 you may go out in the back and cut your own sunflower. The day we were out there it was a bit muddy, but this is a thing to do on a nice day. There are some tire swings for your swinging enjoyment, if any, and if you can navigate the Georgia mud, you can cut your own.

We got some for display purposes but you, the reader may have other uses for the seeds. When they dry out, they’re going to become chicken feed at our place.

We want to get to Rock House Farm at some point as well, who are the local practitioners of some of the regenerative and non-industrial farming that we like.

Day Trip: The Day we went to the Georgia Writers Museum?

Would we put a guest onto this trip? Yes, we would. A pleasant day trip is to go to the Georgia Writers Museum, tour the place and attend the Whiskey Tasting, or whatever else they have going on. Do we need to go to Andalusia Farm? I would say we do at this point, and also the Alice Walker sharecropper farm.

Then take the winding road back and stop off for some Peches, if you are lucky, and some Sunflowers. The whole trip cost us a couple of gallons of gas but was interesting. As the Backroad Travel practitioners we are, we do like to put people onto some attractions if we know them.

You could leave our place after breakfast at 9, get to Andalusia Farm by 10, be back at the Georgia Writer’s Museum at some point after lunch, and back at the Firefly by 4 PM before rush hour starts. Madison Rush Hour, by the way, is at about 3PM when the first shift at Pennington lets out.

PS: did you know we are published authors?

Hey, did you know that you can get our book “Little Southern Towns: the Nickel Tour” and explore some of these little southern towns yourself? You can also get your own “Backroad Travel Journal” although we have found out that backroad travel journaling requires some discipline, and lack of that is a personality flaw for some of us.

Be there in the square.

PS: The Most Famous Building in Georgia is probably the big new stadium downtown. The Third Most Famous, is probably the bar where Ben Roethlisberger got in trouble a few years ago, which is also in Milledgeville, and with some research can be put on your itinerary if you are so inclined. The last time we were there, it didn’t have one of those historical markers outside.