Editing Carson McCullers (section)

==Early life==
McCullers was born '''Lula Carson Smith ''' in [[Columbus, Georgia]], in 1917 to Lamar Smith, a [[jeweler]], and Marguerite Waters.<ref name= "1920 Census">1920 United States Federal Census.</ref> She was named after her maternal grandmother, Lula Carson Waters.<ref name="1920 Census"/> She had a younger brother, Lamar Jr.<ref name= "1920 Census" /> and a younger sister, Marguerite.<ref>1930 United States Federal Census</ref> Her great grandfather on her  mother's side was a [[Planter (American South)|planter]] and [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] soldier. Her father was a watchmaker and jeweler of French [[Huguenot]] descent.  From the age of ten, she took piano lessons; when she was fifteen, her father gave her a typewriter to encourage her story writing.

Smith graduated from [[Columbus High School (Columbus, Georgia)|Columbus High School]]. In September 1934, at age 17, she left home on a steamship bound for New York City, planning to study piano at the [[Juilliard School of Music]]. After losing the money she was going to use to study at Juilliard on the subway, she decided instead to work, take night classes, and write. She worked several odd jobs, including as a waitress and a dog walker.{{sfn|Carr|2003|pages=42–45}} After falling ill with [[rheumatic fever]], she returned to Columbus to recuperate, and she changed her mind about studying music.{{sfn|Carr|2005|p=5}} Returning to New York, she worked in menial jobs while pursuing a writing career; she attended night classes at [[Columbia University]] and studied creative writing under Texas writer [[Dorothy Scarborough]] and with Sylvia Chatfield Bates at [[Washington Square College]] of [[New York University]]. In 1936, she published her first work, "Wunderkind", an autobiographical piece that Bates admired, depicting a music prodigy's adolescent insecurity and losses. It first appeared in [[Story (magazine)|''Story'']] magazine and is collected in ''The Ballad of the Sad Cafe''.{{sfn|Carr|2003|p=62}}

From 1935 to 1937, as her studies and health dictated, she divided her time between Columbus and New York. In September 1937, aged 20, she married an ex-soldier and aspiring writer, Reeves McCullers. A ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' profile described her husband as "a dreamer attracted to big, capable women".<ref name= ":1">{{Cite magazine|url= https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/12/03/unhappy-endings|title=The Unhappy Endings of Carson McCullers|last=Als|first=Hilton|author-link=Hilton Als|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|date=2001-11-26 |access-date= 2019-05-30}}</ref> They began their married life in [[Charlotte, North Carolina]], where Reeves had found work  as a credit salesman.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shapland |first=Jenn |date=February 3, 2020 |title=The Closeting of Carson McCullers |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/02/03/the-closeting-of-carson-mccullers/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230327020439/https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/02/03/the-closeting-of-carson-mccullers/ |archive-date=March 27, 2023 |access-date=May 21, 2024 |website=[[The Paris Review]] |language=en}}</ref> The couple made a pact to take alternating turns as writer then breadwinner, starting with Reeves's taking a salaried position while McCullers wrote. Her eventual success as a writer precluded his literary ambitions.<ref name= ":1" />