Eudora Welty Society Celebrates Author’s 100th Birthday

The Eudora Welty Society marked the writer’s 100th birthday with a Centennial Conference and Celebration in Jackson, Mississippi, April 16–19, a meeting organized and directed by Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University. More than 70 Welty scholars from around the world gathered to hear and deliver papers and discuss Welty’s fiction. Peggy Prenshaw, Humanities Scholar in Residence at Millsaps College, opened the plenary with “The Writing Life.” Session topics included “From the Archives,” “Welty and Aesthetics,” “Welty and Race,” and “On The Optimist’s Daughter.” Many young scholars, new to the field, attended, and others traveled from as far as France, Israel, and Austria.

The EWS celebration collaborated with the Southern Literary Festival, hosted by Millsaps College and directed by Austin Wilson, professor of English. The SLF brought writers Richard Ford, Alfred Uhry, Elizabeth Spencer, and Ann Patchett to speak and read. It also offered a “Remembering Eudora” panel that included Mary Alice White (Welty’s niece, now director of the Eudora Welty House), Patti Carr Black (Welty’s Escapades, University Press of Mississippi), former Mississippi Governor William Winter, and Welty biographer Suzanne Marrs.

In preconference events, the Eudora Welty House welcomed visitors to her home and garden. Forrest Galey, director of the Welty Collection of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, offered sessions introducing scholars to the new archives. Evening events included a Mississippi Museum of Art reception to highlight an exhibition recreating Welty’s 1936 Lugene Gallery photography show. The New Stage Theater followed a performance of Welty’s The Ponder Heart with a “talk back” featuring the production cast. In a concert planned by Karen Redhead of the Welty House and Jeanne Luckett of the Welty Foundation, folksingers Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kate Campbell, Caroline Herring, and Claire Holley performed songs inspired by Welty’s fiction at the Belhaven Center for the Performing Arts. A Mississippi Symphony Orchestra tribute program “Bravo V: Adoring Eudora” included Welty favorites, the Schubert “Unfinished” Symphony and Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto—but also two recent compositions inspired by her work: MSO Music Director Crafton Beck’s The Whistle and Mississippi composer James Sclater’s Concerto for Orchestra, subtitled “Images from Welty,” originally written for the writer’s 80th birthday. The three movements of the Concerto for Orchestra are titled with phrases from her work. A gala luncheon at the Fairview Inn and a tour of Welty’s Jackson led by Suzanne Marrs ended the conference.

Daniéle Pitavy-Souques, Université de Bourgogne, who with her husband, Faulkner scholar François Pitavy, traveled from France to attend, called the conference “truly challenging and brain-invigorating” and an “incredibly joyous whirlwind of celebration.” Susan Donaldson, College of William and Mary, termed it “a testimony to Welty’s work and the way it has inspired all of us.” Pollack—who joked that, when working on the conference, she was “first trying to get its parts to move together, and then trying not to get caught in its moving parts”—was grateful that the powerful collaboration had unfolded gracefully. “Events like these foster the sense of community that sustains our work together and apart.”