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| Eudroa Welty
Photo by Richard Moore |
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In 1973, Mississippi’s Eudora Welty received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Optimist’s Daughter. The year before, she won the Gold Medal for Fiction of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a few years—and honorary degrees—later, she was honored with the National Medal for Literature from the American Book Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
It was the beginning of a long period of acclaim for the accomplished author from Jackson. By this time, Miss Welty had published five novels, one children’s book, one book of photographs, and four collections of short stories. She later published her memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings, which became a national bestseller.
Miss Welty’s short stories intrigued filmmaker Richard Moore. With a camera crew in tow, he traveled to Jackson in 1975, and he recorded Miss Welty in her home as she read from her original works. Richard Moore’s films were archived at the National Endowment for the Arts.
When Miss Welty died in 2001, at the age of 92, the literary world knew her words would live on. Then, Richard Moore’s films were rediscovered, and now, we can literally hear her voice again. Stories first published in 1941, remained universal not only at the filming but also today. Excerpts from her 1970 novel Losing Battles also ring as true today as they did then.
Thanks to permission from Richard Moore, The Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and the Eudora Welty House Museum, Mississippi Public Broadcasting is proud to present four of these films in two special episodes of Writers. Petrified Man, excerpts from Losing Battles, and an excerpt from The Wanderers comprise the first program. The much anthologized A Worn Path and Why I Live at the P. O. make up the second.
Overview
