The Eudora Welty Review offers a research grant of up to $2000 to a scholar interested in conducting research on Eudora Welty, her writings, photographs, travels, cultural milieu, friends, or publishers at any archive. Applicants may be graduate students, independent scholars, college or university faculty at any level. Applicants might consider research at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin, J.D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi, the University of Wisconsin, New York Public Library, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University (Hubert Creekmore), Wilson Library at UNC (Elizabeth Spencer), Duke University Libraries (Reynolds Price), or any other archive that may benefit the applicant’s Welty research. To apply, send a one-page letter describing your research project and a budget of how you would use the funds to EWR associate editor Sarah Ford at sarah_ford@baylor.edu by October 15, 2023. Decisions will be made by January 15, 2024. Funds may be used from February 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025. The recipient of the Eudora Welty Review Research Grant will coordinate with EWR to present a brief report or presentation of research.
2024 Eudora Welty Review Research Grant
The Eudora Welty Review is proud to announce that Pei-Wen Clio Kao is the winner of the 2024 Eudora Welty Review Grant. Pei-Wen will be researching in the Mississippi Department of Archives & History and the J.D. Williams Library at the University of Mississippi. Her project is a comparative study of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, examining cityscapes and urban scenarios, with a focus on New Orleans. We look forward to hearing the results of Pei-Wen’s research project.
2023 Eudora Welty Review Research Grants
The Eudora Welty Review is pleased to announce that two research grants have been awarded for 2023 to Elizabeth Crews of Blue Mountain Christian University and Harriet Pollack of College of Charleston.
Elizabeth Crews will be working on “Eudora Welty and Mary Louise Aswell” by exploring the collection of correspondence between Welty and Aswell housed at Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Crews writes that her “goal is to create a narrative of the friendship of Welty and Aswell and to look at the role the friendship played in the writings of both women. Welty and Aswell’s friendship began when Aswell was the editor of Harper’s Bazaar, and she often considered and accepted Welty’s stories for publication. However, as the years progressed, Aswell moved away from editing and began writing herself. In many ways, Welty served as an encourager and sounding board for Aswell’s writing ideas and explorations, and Aswell continued to be a trusted reader for Welty throughout their friendship.”
Harriet Pollack will be working on “Eudora Welty Leaves Home: Letters Between Mother and Daughter.” She will explore the long-sealed Welty Family Papers, also housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. When the collection first opened in April, Pollack spent a few days reading the correspondence between Chestina Andrews and Christian Welty during their courtship, letters and diaries from extended family, and Eudora’s own notes on this material. She will use the grant to return to MDAH, in her words, “to locate the two sides of the correspondence between mother and daughter, written as Eudora first departed from her home and family at the very young age of 16 to attend ‘The W’ (now Mississippi University for Women), then again as she attended University of Wisconsin at 18, and finally as she advanced to Columbia University School of Business and New York City when 21.”
Results of these research projects will be published in the 2024 Eudora Welty Review.