Eudora Welty Foundation

The Eudora Welty Foundation continues to undertake ventures in collaboration with partners to encourage the reading, study, enjoyment, and appreciation of Welty’s written and photographic works, visitation of the Welty House and Garden, and research in the Welty Collection at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Inaugural Eudora Welty Lecture to Feature Author Salman Rushdie

One of the strategic goals of the Welty Foundation and its National Advisory Board has been to create an endowed initiative of significant prominence in honor of Eudora Welty. Working in partnership with the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, the Welty Foundation announced in February 2016 the creation of The Eudora Welty Lecture. The inaugural speaker will be author Salman Rushdie, who will present on October 20, 2016, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, as part of the PEN/Faulkner Reading Series. The lecture will be open to the public, and information about tickets will be forthcoming. Details will be posted on the Welty Foundation website: eudorawelty.org.

Lecturers will be chosen from the most prominent writers working in the English language today. Each lecturer will present an original talk on the topic of his/her creative origins and will receive a $20,000 honorarium.

The Eudora Welty Lecture is inspired by the lectures Welty delivered at Harvard University in 1983 as part of the William E. Massey, Sr. series. Over three lectures (Listening, Learning to See, and Finding a Voice), Welty surveyed her life as a writer and detailed the bonds between her upbringing in Jackson, Mississippi, and her remarkable literary voice. Following in the tradition of Welty, Rushdie will lead the audience along his own thread of revelation.

Scholastic Writing Award Winners to Hear Author Shalanda Stanley at Ceremony; Gold and Silver Key Winners Eligible for McMullan Young Writers Workshop

From a record 572 submissions, 272 have been selected by judges to receive Scholastic Writing Awards. The awards ceremony was held April 10, 2016, at the Eudora Welty House and Garden. There are 32 gold key winners, 102 silver key winners, and 142 honorable mentions. A generous grant from the C Spire Foundation enables the Welty Foundation, in association with the Welty House and Garden, to offer the Scholastic Writing program statewide.

Shalanda Stanley, author of Drowning Is Inevitable and assistant professor of curriculum, instruction, and leadership at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, was the ceremony’s keynote speaker. Stanley participated by Skype with the students who attended the McMullan Young Writers Workshop for Scholastic medalists last summer at Millsaps College. This year’s Scholastic medalists will be eligible to attend the workshop in the summer of 2016.

The Scholastic Writing Awards Ceremony in April was part of a week-long celebration of the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Welty House. Visit the Welty Foundation website for details: eudorawelty.org.

Pulitzer Prize Centennial To Be Celebrated with Focus on The Optimist’s Daughter

The centennial of the Pulitzer Prize is being celebrated in 2016, and the Eudora Welty Foundation and Welty House and Garden, with support from the Mississippi Humanities Council, will host special events featuring The Optimist’s Daughter beginning in May 2016.

The Foundation will produce a reader’s guide which will include photographs of artifacts in the Welty House and Education and Visitors center and flowers in the Garden that are referenced in The Optimist’s Daughter. The month of May will have the book’s focus included in the daily tours.

Fundraising Under Way to Endow Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Literature at Millsaps

Efforts to endow the Eudora Welty Chair of Southern Literature at Millsaps College have received a significant boost with two gifts of $250,000 each from Joe and Kathy Sanderson of Laurel, Mississippi, and the Phil Hardin Foundation. The $500,000 will be used to stimulate other contributions to meet the $2.5 million goal for endowing the chair. The endowment will enable the college to begin a national search for a preeminent scholar to fill the position.

The Welty Chair is being endowed to continue the nationally and internationally renowned work of Suzanne Marrs, who retired from Millsaps in...