Celebrating Eudora

Eudora Welty portrait by Curt Richter

In two more months the world will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of a major literary figure.
Mississippi isn’t waiting that long. As MPB’s Ron Brown reports, the Eudora Welty celebration is underway in Natchez this weekend.

Eudora Welty is a beloved writer in literary circles, but she is revered in Mississippi. She was born in the magnolia state.
It’s where she called home. And in 2001, it’s where she died.

Welty's books are taught in English courses all over the nation, but perhaps no more enthusiastically than at Milsaps College in Jackson. That’s where Dr. Suzanne Marrs teaches English, and she wrote the book on Eudora Welty, literally. Her 2005 Welty biography earned high critical praise.

“I always find something new when I’m teaching Eudora Welty’s work. I see something that I’ve missed before.”

For Marrs, and so many others, Eudora Welty is a masterful American author.

“She deals with the issues of love, and death, of race and class, issues that are so crucial to our lives. And she does so with complexity and humanity.”

Marrs began reading Welty in 1975. She came to Jackson to study Welty’s work and finally became one of Welty’s close friends. So for Suzanne Marrs, teaching students about Eudora Welty comes happily, and easily.

“I feel like I’ve got the ideal job, and have had it for a long time.”

Her ideal job becomes even more so this weekend in Natchez as her classroom expands to thousands of Eudora Welty fans at the 20th annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration. This year’s subject is celebrating the centennial of Eudora Welty’s birth. Marrs is the keynote speaker.

“It gives us an occasion to celebrate, a magnificent body of work. To celebrate her fiction. To celebrate her memoir. To celebrate her essays. To celebrate her photographs. And also to celebrate her life. Because her life was worthy of her work.”

The centennial celebration will feature a wide variety of seminars and workshops for every education level through Sunday. It’ll also host the premiere of a new Eudora Welty documentary.

Mark LaFrancis is the writer/producer.

“This brings Eudora Welty to the screen in a way that I don’t think any other documentary has done. Not only through those that she inspired, not only extensive footage inside her house, with interviews with her niece and Suzanne Marrs, her biographer, but also many, many clips of Eudora Welty actually talking.”

It is her writing voice that has spoken to so many admirers for so many years. But in the LaFrancis documentary, Welty’s speaking voice is expected to elicit a mix of emotions.

Caroline Vance Smith is the founder and co-chair of the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration. She and others at Copiah-Lincoln Community College have staged the successful annual event for 20th years, attracting celebrated authors and speakers, and without charging an admission fee.

“Everything about the conference is free. Absolutely free. You don’t even have to register. You just walk through the door and have a seat and get ready to be blown away.”

Each year the conference is different but it always deals with some aspect of Southern history. This year’s centennial celebration of Eurdora Welty is something special, because Welty herself helped organize the first conference in 1990.

“Miss Welty is such a universal figure to have Mississippi roots. And she places most of her work if not 100 percent of her work, in Mississippi.”

But it’s not only the work of Eudora Welty being honored this weekend in Natchez. Her biographer Suzanne Marrs says we can learn more from Miss Welty than just studying what she wrote.

“I think her life is another reason we want to celebrate this centennial. Because it was a life well lived, a rich and full life.”

This weekend in Natchez is just the beginning of the Eudora Welty centennial. More events are scheduled throughout the year as Mississippi begins a celebration, 100 years in the making. For MPB News, I’m Ron Brown.