Welty week|Events set to honor famed Mississippi author
Published 12:00 am Saturday, April 4, 2009
Fans of Mississippi writer and photographer Eudora Welty will have plenty of opportunities to enjoy her work and legacy in the coming days as Jackson, her hometown, celebrates the centennial of her birth on April 13.
Welty died in 2001, but can be seen this week and next in never-before-broadcast films of her reading from her works in special editions of Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s “Writers” series. The rare footage, shot in 1975 by filmmaker Richard Moore, was donated to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Thursday’s program will feature Welty reading from her short story, “Petrified Man” and her novel, “Losing Battles.” On April 16, she will be seen reading from “A Worn Patch” and “Why I Live at the P.O.”
Each program begins at 9 p.m. and can be seen locally on cable Channel 7.
Thursday will also see the opening reception for Eudoric Eurythmy: Visual Arts Based on the Life and Works of Eudora Welty, at Highlands Fine Art Gallery, from 5 to 8 p.m. The event kicks off an exhibition that will continue at the gallery through April 30, featuring portraits of Welty and images, created by Mississippi artists, paying homage to her home, characters and scenes from her novels and short stories.
Welty was born in Jackson in 1909 and, with the exception of some time at school in Wisconsin and New York City, spent her life there. She lived what Welty scholar Carol Ann Johnston called “an idyllic childhood” with parents Christian and Chestina and brothers Edward and Walter. The family lived first on Congress Avenue and later on Pinehurst Street.
The Pinehurst home is now the site of the MDAH’s Eudora Welty House, where her 100th birthday will be celebrated April 13 with cake and free tours. Reservations are required, and can be made by calling 601-353-7762 or e-mailing weltytours@mdah.state.ms.us.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Welty published her first short story, “Death of a Traveling Salesman,” in 1936. Her first collection of short stories, “A Curtain of Green,” with a forward by Katherine Anne Porter, was published in 1941.
“Welty’s best work is among the best work of any writer in the 20th Century,” writes Johnston in her lengthy essay and analysis of Welty’s work first published in 1998 on the Web site, olemiss.edu. Welty had “extraordinary vision,” Johnston writes, as well as a talent for comic writing and a brilliant ear for dialogue that dates to her childhood, when she would climb into the family car for trips and issue the command, “Now talk!”
While her first gift was for listening, Johnston writes, her interests and talents were visual as well.
During the 1930s, before undertaking her writing career, Welty worked as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration. She traveled around Mississippi recording its people and places with photographs later published in two collections, “One Time, One Place” and “Photographs.”
A photographic exhibit, Welty in New York, opens April 11 at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. The exhibit runs through July 5. “In these photographs, Welty captures America in the depths of the Great Depression revealing a compassion and sensitivity towards her subjects that also became a hallmark of her writing,” the museum states on its Web site.
Other upcoming events include a stage adaptation of Welty’s novel, “The Ponder Heart,” at Jackson’s New Stage Theatre, running Wednesdays through Sundays between April 14 and 26. Welty was a great supporter of New Stage, serving on its board of directors and actively involved in its operations and productions from its inception in 1966 until her health declined.
A centennial concert featuring famous country artist Mary Chapin Carpenter and other performers will be April 17 at Belhaven College Center for the Arts, and a special concert by the Mississippi Symphony, Adoring Eudora, will be at 7:30 p.m. April 18.
Welty published 10 collections of short stories, six novels, literary criticism and essays. She won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973 for her novel, “The Optimist’s Daughter.”
Welty had “wide scope as an artist,” Johnston writes, “and reading through her work reveals an astonishing tonal range in subject and style, the most expansive of any 20th-Century writer.”
For more information on Eudora Welty, her life and work, and a complete listing of centennial events, visit www.eudorawelty.org.
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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com.