I’d be hard-pressed to name a favorite author, but Eudora Welty is up there.  I first discovered Welty in ninth grade.  My English teacher told my mother during a parent-teacher night that she simply must buy me a copy of One Writer’s Beginnings, Welty’s memoir-slash-writing-meditation.  My mom dutifully rushed out to Barnes & Noble and brought me back a copy of the slim volume, which I devoured.  The story of Welty’s idyllic southern childhood and how she found her voice as a writer captivated me.  It didn’t take me long to seek out copies of some of Welty’s short stories and novels, and I found them every bit as enthralling as One Writer’s Beginnings.  Welty’s writing style is clean yet folksy, and in her works everyday events seem to be cloaked in golden light.  She is both a master of the short story form and a brilliant novelist, something most writers can’t say for themselves.  Every time I pick up one of Welty’s books or stories, I am thrown back into a simpler yet no less dramatic time, and I’m grateful to that teacher for making sure I knew about this magnificent author.  Here are some of my favorite Welty works:

One Writer’s Beginnings – While many readers find their introduction to Eudora Welty through her short stories, it all starts here for me.  Welty recounts her childhood and how she learned to write in three chapters: Listening, Learning to See, and Finding My Voice.  Welty’s life was not particularly dramatic.  She didn’t go through the “school of hard knocks” the way many people believe a writer must in order to be great.  I think this is her strength; she lived an ordinary life, surrounded by a loving and supportive family, and from that she learned to find great beauty and drama in everyday things.

A Curtain of Green – This was Welty’s first of many collections of short stories.  The book explores race relations in Mississippi, but in a subtle and kind light.  And race isn’t the driving force behind Welty’s writing; rather, she focuses on the people who live in her South and the beauty and challenges they face in their lives.

The Optimist’s Daughter – This novel won Welty the Pulitzer Prize, and it’s probably her masterpiece.  Laurel Hand travels to the bedside of her father, an aging Judge who is about to undergo eye surgery.  As she attends her father, Laurel must also deal with the Judge’s much-younger second wife, Fay.  When the Judge dies, Laurel and Fay travel back to Laurel’s childhood home, where Fay antagonizes the neighbors and Laurel learns that Fay lied about her family.  Laurel must learn to view Fay with compassion, and to confront her own memories as she cleans out the house.  It’s a soft book, gentle, but searing.

Delta Wedding – This is a lesser-known novel, and The Optimist’s Daughter tends to steal all the glory, but Delta Wedding is my favorite Welty novel.  The story is told through the eyes of nine-year-old Laura, who is traveling back to the Mississippi Delta to visit a family plantation on the eve of her cousin Dabney Fairchild’s wedding.  It’s not a plot-driven novel, but one focused on characters and setting, which is right up my alley.  I find myself thinking of the Fairchilds, who loved to linger at the table long after dinner, whenever conversation at my own table stretches on through tea and coffee and beyond.

Eudora Welty was a prolific writer who published many, many short stories and six novels – these few are just my own personal favorites.  Her works are timeless, yet grounded in the particular era in which she wrote.  I’ve read and re-read them, and I’ll be reading them for the rest of my life.

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