Description
Eudora Welty is a beloved institution of Southern fiction and American literature, whose closely guarded privacy has prevented a full-scale study of her life and work--until now.
A significant contribution to the world of letters, Ann Waldron's biography chronicles the history and achievements of one of our greatest living authors, from a Mississippi childhood to the sale of her first short story, from her literary friendships with Katherine Anne Porter and Elizabeth Bowen to her rivalry with Carson McCullers.
Elegant and authoritative, this first biography to chart the life of a national treasure is a must-have for Welty fans and scholars everywhere.
About the Author
Ann Waldron was born in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up on Cotton Avenue in West End. She went to Hemphill Grammar School and West End High School. She and her parents and older sister lived three blocks from the Vine Street Presbyterian Church, which they attended twice every Sunday and on Wednesday nights for prayer meeting. They spent summers on an 80-acre farm her parents owned in St. Clair County, near Cook Springs.Ann was co-editor of her high school newspaper (the principal decreed that, although she was able enough, she was too much of a discipline problem to be the editor in chief). She did become editor of theCrimson-White, the student newspaper at the University of Alabama, from which she graduated in 1945. She attended Hudson Strode's creative writing class at the university and appeared in Blackfriars plays.Her first job was with theAtlanta Constitution, where she was a reporter for two and a half years. It was there that she met her husband, Martin Waldron, who was then a student at Georgia Tech and who happened to see an advertisement for a copy boy's job on a bulletin board at Tech. He applied, got the job, and never looked back. He realized that he was destined to be a newspaper reporter, not an engineer, and he dropped out of Tech.Martin later finished college at Birmingham-Southern while he worked for theBirmingham Post-Herald. Ann worked onThe Progressive Farmermagazine. When Martin was hired by theTampa Tribunethe Waldrons, with their two children, Peter and Lolly, moved to Florida, where Martin first covered the citrus industry in Lakeland, and then the state capitol in Tallahassee.The women's editor of theTribune, knowing of Ann's journalistic experience, asked her to write a weekly feature on women in state government. By now there were two more children--Thomas William and Boojie (real name Martin Oliver Waldron III)--but she managed the one-day-a-week job happily. In fact, when she was in the hospital once, Martin wrote her column for her.In 1960, theSt. Petersburg Timeshired both of them, but let them stay in Tallahassee. Martin led the team that did the series of stories exposing corruption in the management of the Florida Turnpike Authority that won theTimesa Pulitzer Prize for Community Service.Ann's column was still appearing in both theTimesand theMiami Heraldin 1965 when theNew York Timeshired Martin to open a bureau in Houston, Texas. The Waldrons moved to Houston, where Ann became book editor of theHouston Chronicle, and began writing children's books.In 1975, theTimestransferred Martin to New York and the Waldrons settled in Princeton. "We looked at suburbs on Long Island, Westchester County, Monclair, Red Bank, and Princeton, and we loved Princeton," Ann said. She took classes at Princeton University and went to work there as the associate editor of a quarterly magazine,University. She continued to write children's books, published six novels for young people, and wrote a book about art forgeries.In 1981, Martin died, and Ann went to work fulltime for Princeton as the editor of itsCampaign Bulletin. Children's books no longer held the same fascination for her--she wanted to do something different, and settled on a biography of Caroline Gordon. Biography seemed to be the ideal kind of book for her, since she could use research skills learne din journalism and bring people to life using some of the techniques of fiction I had learned. "Princeton University was an immensely helpful employer," she said. "My boss gave me every Wednesday afternoon off so I could do research in the library where Caroline Gordon's papers were held. Often in my travels for theCampaign Bulletin, I could do an interview for the biography as well."http://www.annwaldron.com/bio.htm
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