April 8, 1981

The author of Pulitzer Prize winning The Optimist’s Daughter (1972) and National Book Award winning The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1980), Eudora Welty, read and commented on her fiction in the Chapel to a crowd of 1,200 students. “Welty pointed out,” wrote Douglas MacKay ’82 in The Miscellany News, “‘Southern writers are all very much themselves and between them there isn’t much cousinin’ around. All of us have our own different approaches to the South, and each of us has discovered the best way for interpreting our vision.’”

Summarizing her third Vassar visit, Welty said, “I really enjoy this place, and I’m so impressed that ya’ll seem to keep gettin’ smarter and smarter as time goes by. Or perhaps it’s just that I’m gettin’ on and I feel everybody’s gettin’ smarter.”

The Miscellany News