| Eudora Welty by Angela Richardson |
| April 13, 1909 - July 23, 2001
"I try to enter the mind, heart and body of a human being who is not myself" |
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| Often compared to such writers as William Faulkner, Flannery O�Connor and Alice Walker, Welty had a strong sense of values and chose to write about such subjects as love, relationships and life in the south. She had a dry wit and used dialogue and humor to tell her stories. At times, readers miss her sarcasm or irony and tend to read her literally, perhaps missing the point she is trying to make. Of her works, it has often been said that they are better read aloud. This way one can emphasize the wit and sarcasm of Ms. Welty.
She was born April 13, 1909 to a school teacher (mother) and an insurance executive (father). Eudora Welty once described her childhood in Jackson, Mississippi as idyllic. Welty, who never married, would choose to live her life in one of her two family homes until her death in 2001 at the age of 92. Welty left Jackson only for short ventures. While she attended the Mississippi State College for Women, she eventually left to continue her education at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and to live in New York City for about a year, where she attended Columbia University. While Welty did enjoy the museums and theatrical performances of New York, her father�s illness and ultimate death called for her return to Jackson. Upon her return to Jackson, Welty worked at a local radio station and also wrote a Society column for the Commercial Appeal, a Memphis, Tennessee newspaper popular in Jackson. Welty, who was a visual artist, used the camera much like she used language as a writer. The publication of her first story, "Death of a Traveling Salesman," in the literary magazine Manuscript coincided with Black Saturday, an exhibit of photographs Welty had taken on her travels across rural Mississippi. While she felt her primary medium was language, she continued to take photographs until 1950, when she accidentally left her camera sitting on a bench in the Paris Metro. Out of anger and frustration at her own carelessness, she never replaced it. Thus ended her career in photography. Welty won many honors over the course of her career, including Guggenheim fellowships, numerous O. Henry Awards and National Book Award nominations, a National Medal for Literature, and in 1973, the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist's Daughter. Ever the genteel southern lady, it was rumored that while she lay dying in a hospital bed, her doctor leaned over and asked "Eudora, is there anything I can do for you?" Her rumored reply was "No, but thank you so much for inviting me to the party." Eudora Welty also has an email client named in her honor. �Eudora� was named in reference to her short story "Why I Live at the P.O." Eudora Creator, Steve Dorner, read the short story about sibling rivalry while he was in college. Years later, he remembered the story and tweaked the title a little to come up with �bringing the P. O. to where you live.� It became the program�s motto and Eudora was the name. |
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| Links of Interest |
| Page created by Angela Richardson as a project for English 3134 Computers, Writing, and Literature East Tennessee State University Box 70267 Johnson City, TN 423.439.1000 http://www.etsu.edu Last revised December 8, 2005 |