History
The Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium, an annual October event at
Mississippi University for Women, was established in 1989 to honor
Miss Welty and to commemorate the inauguration of Dr. Clyda Rent.
During the Symposium, which is sponsored by the Humanities Division,
Southern writers read from and discuss their works to an audience of several hundred.
In 1996, the symposium and its director, Dr. Ginger Hitt, were presented the
first-ever Chair's Award for Excellence by the Mississippi
Humanities Council.
Each year a theme is formulated to provide coherence and to
stimulate interest. Writers whose works seem to embody the theme
chosen for a given year are invited to read from a work and to
discuss some aspect of the work: Characterization, locale,
autobiographical elements, problems of dialogue/dialect, etc. From
1989 through 1997, forty-nine different writers and thirty-six
scholars have appeared. A list of past themes and participants is
provided below.
The symposium has established a reputation for showcasing new
talent: Ann Patchett, Vicki Covington, Larry Brown, Dori Sanders,
Jeanne Lebow, Nanci Kincaid, Clifton Taulbert, Elizabeth Dewberry,
Dorothy Shawhan, Rebecca Wells, Judson Mitcham, and Lynna Williams
appeared on the symposium program after publishing a single work,
or in a few cases, two. They are now recognized as prominent
contemporary southern writers.
Many writers featured at the symposium have been prize-winners on
state, national, and international levels. Three have been
Pulitzer Prize winners: Yusef Komunyaaka in 1994 for poetry,
Edward Humes in 1989 for special reporting in journalism, and
Donald Justice in 1980 for poetry. Justice also won a Bollingen
Prize for Poetry in 1991. Steve Yarbrough won the Pushcart Prize
in 1998; Judson Mitcham won a Pushcart poetry prize in 1989; Al
Young won the Pushcart in 1976 and 1980. Young is also the winner
of the American Book Award in 1982, a Fulbright fellowship to
Yugoslavia in 1982, and a PEN USA award in 1996, along with being
named a Woodrow Wilson lecturer and a Rockefeller Distinguished
lecturer.
Other awards abound. Mark Childress's Crazy in Alabama has been
published in the United States, Great Britain, Germany (where it
was abest seller for 10 months), Spain, Italy, France, Russia,
Holland, and Denmark. It is now a movie as well. Lewis Nordan
won the Notable Book Award from Alabama for three different books;
twice he has been awarded the Best Fiction Award by the
Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. His novel Wolf Whistle
won the Southern Book Award. Will Campbell was the first
recipient of the Alex Haley Award for Distinguished Tennessee
Writers; in 1995, he was awarded the Tennessee Governor's Award.
Several writers have been recipients of writing fellowships from
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National
Endowment for the Arts, among them Elizabeth Spencer (several
times, one for $40,000), Ellen Gilchrist, Dannye Romine-Powell,
Brenda Marie Osbey and Judson Mitcham. Guggenheim fellowships
have been awarded to Randall Kenan, who also won the 1995 Sherwood
Anderson Award, to Elizabeth Spencer, to Donald Justice, and to
Beverly Lowry.
Scholars, as well as writers, are invited to the conference.
Mississippi University for Women and the University Press of
Mississippi jointly award the Eudora Welty Prize to an outstanding
work of literary scholarship. The prize consists of publication
of the manuscript by the Press and a $1500 cash award by MUW. The
winner of this prize is invited to present her or his work at the
symposium. Prize winners are exemplary scholars in their
respective fields; Phillip Page, the 1996 winner for his work on
the novels of Toni Morrison, was awarded the 1997 Toni Morrison
Prize by the Toni Morrison Society. Outstanding Welty scholars,
such as Suzanne Marrs, Jan Nordby Gretlund, Michael Kreyling,
Peggy Prenshaw, Rebecca Mark, and Peter Schmidt have appeared.
Kreyling, Mark, and Schmidt are Welty Prize winners or finalists.
Themes and Participants:
2007 “‘Amending but never taking back’: Hope and Despair as the ‘Closest Blood’ in Southern Literature”
- Writers:
- Rilla Askew, R.H. Brown, Ellen Douglas, Pia Ehrhardt, Nan Graham, Louise Hawes, Ava Leavell Haymon, Karon Luddy, Richard Lyons, Pennelope Stokes, and James D. Ward
- Scholar:
- Jeff Weddle
2006 “‘Passing the Torch’ from the ‘Foot of the Ladder’: Teaching and Learning in Southern Literature.”
- Writers:
- Sonny Brewer, doris davenport, , Mindy Friddle, William Gay, Lynne Hinton, Lynn Pruett, Elizabeth Spencer, James R. Whitley, and Crystal Wilkinson
- Scholars:
- Anne Goodwyn Jones, Dorothy Shawhan, Martha Swain, and John K. Young
- Photographer:
- Maude Schuyler Clay
2005 "'Playing on the Air. . .Like a Signal or a Greeting': Convergent Voices in Southern Literature."
- Writers:
- Bebe Barefoot, Jennifer Davis, Beth-Ann Fennelly, Tom Franklin, Silas House, Inman Majors, Ruth Moose, Gina Ochsner, Lee Smith, Brad Vice, Rosemary Wells, and Claude Wilkinson
- Scholar:
- Darlene Unrue
2004 "What might be out of sight. . .": Focusing the Image, Composing the Scene, and Directing the Eye in Southern Literature
- Writers:
- Ace Atkins, John Bensko, Pamela Duncan, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Joe Lee, Tim Parrish, Josh Russell, Daniel Wallace, Lynn York, and Isabel Zuber
- Scholar:
- Martha Ward
2003 Their own visioning: The Power of Landscape in Southern Literature
- Writers:
- Connie May Fowler, Carolyn Elkins, Cassandra King, Robert Morgan, Barbara Robinette Moss, Ron Rash, Jack Riggs, Natasha Trethewey, Brad Watson
- Scholar:
- Christopher Maurer (Welty Prize)
2002 The Dear Dust of Our Long Absence: Journeys to and from the South
- Writers:
- Jeanne Braselton, Moira Crone, Kendall Dunkelberg, Kaye Gibbons, Becky Hageston, Cary Holladay, and Paul Ruffin
- Scholar:
- Stuart Chapman (Welty Prize)
2001 A Kindred Soul to Laugh With: The Comic Spirit in Southern Literature
- Writers:
- Martin Clark, Lee Durkee, Jane Hinton, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Haven Kimmel, Sheri Reynolds, and Elizabeth Strout
- Scholar:
- Suzanne Mars
2000 Setting New Places at the Reunion Table: Inclusion in the Southern Literature of the New Century or "She knows we're all part of it together, or ought to be!"
- Writers:
- Jill Conner Browne, Melinda Haynes, Tova Mirvis, Sena Jeter Naslund, and C.D. Wright
- Scholars:
- Jan Nordby Gretlund and Robert Philipson (Welty Prize)
1999 Transforming Autobiography and History: Fiction as "The Continuous Thread of Revelation."
- Writers:
- Rick Bragg, Louisa Dixon, Mary Hood, Lewis Nordan, Cynthia Shearer, and James Wilcox
- Scholars:
- Pearl McHaney and Margo V. Perkins (Welty Prize)
1998 Celebrating a Decade of Emerging Southern Writers
- Writers:
- Nanci Kincaid, Dennis Covington, Ellen Douglas, Jerry
Ward, Steve Yarbrough, John Dufresne, and Ashley Warlick
- Scholar:
- Jim Neilson (Welty Prize)
1997 The Place of Place in Contemporary Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Rebecca Wells, Tim Gautreaux, Judson Mitcham, Dori
Sanders, Al Young, and Lynna Williams
- Scholars:
- Michael Kreyling (Welty Prize) and Ralph Hitt
1996 Murder, Mayhem, Mystery, and Madness: Gothic Elements in Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Lewis Nordan, E. L. Wyrick, Mark Childress, Beverly
Lowry, Brenda Marie Osbey, Edward Humes, John Armistead
- Scholars:
- Philip Page (Welty Prize), Kim Whitehead, and Ralph Hitt
1995 A Southern Trinity: Politics, Family, and Religion
- Writers:
- Kaye Gibbons, Dennis Covington, Will Campbell, Randall
Kenan, Vicki Covington, Yusef Komunyaaka, Dorothy Shawhan, and Dannye
Romine-Powell
- Scholars:
- Charles Reagan Wilson, Jan Nordby Gretlund, and Ann Waldron
1994 Keeping the House in Order: Civil and Domestic Conflict in Southern Literature
- Writers:
- Jill McCorckle, Donald Justice, Luke Wallin, Elizabeth
Dewberry, Kalamu Ya Salaam, Peggy Webb, and Steve Yarbrough
- Scholars:
- Martha Swain (Welty Prize), and James Keller
1993 The Shaping Spirit of the Imagination: The Creative Art of Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Nanci Kincaid, Dennis Covington, Timothy Seibles, Paul
Ruffin, Terry Everett, Mary Ann Ross, Tim McLaurin, and Vicki
Covington
- Scholars:
- Rebecca Mark (Welty Prize), Deborah Clarke, Linda Tate, and
Sally Wolff
1992 Infinite Variety: The Many Modes of Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Ann Patchett, Shelby Stephenson, Jeanne Lebow, Steve
Shepard, Clifton Taulbert, and Eudora Welty
- Scholars:
- Will Brantley (Welty Prize), Susan Snell, Helen Levy,
Suzanne Marrs, and Dabney Gray
1991 Hearing Voices: The Southern Tradition of Storytelling
- Writers:
- Vicki Covington, Ellen Gilchrist, Elizabeth Spencer,
Jerry Ward, Dennis Covington, Lisa Koger, and Eudora Welty
- Scholars:
- Peter Schmidt (Welty Prize), Peggy Prenshaw, Trudier
Harris, Faith Pullen, Robert Phillips, and Bridget Smith Pieschel
1990 Finding a Voice: A New Generation of Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Clyde Edgerton, Larry Brown, Kaye Gibbons, Dennis
Covington, James Clark, Dori Sanders, Vicki Covington, Ann Deagon, and
Eudora Welty
- Scholars:
- Nancy Walker (Welty Prize), Missy D. Kubitschek, and Thomas
Richardson
1989 When Separate Journeys Converge: Southern Women, Southern Writing
- Writers:
- Ellen Douglas, Vicki Covington, and Eudora Welty
- Scholars:
- Marilyn White, Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, Suzanne Marrs,
Price Caldwell, Nancy Hargrove, Jan Hawks, Rebecca Stockwell, and
Deborah Plant
