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In 1933 Eudora Welty went to work for the Works Progress Administration as a publicity agent, travelling Mississippi with a camera and photographing the people she met; the pictures were published in 1971 as One Time, One Place. She wrote almost everything at her family’s house at 1119 Pinehurst Street in Jackson, where, the story goes, she burned her only copy of “Petrified Man” in the kitchen and later rewrote it from memory. Katherine Anne Porter wrote the foreword to her first collection, A Curtain of Green (1941). In July 1963, after the murder of Medgar Evers, she published “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” in The New Yorker, told by the killer. The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. The ten writers below share what she is read for: a small place heard closely, family talk that gives everything away, and comedy that sits right next to grief.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Southern literature · Short stories · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Eudora Welty, start with Katherine Anne Porter, her mentor, who wrote the foreword to A Curtain of Green. For the South with more violence, read Flannery O’Connor, and for linked stories about one small town today, Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge. The list also goes back to Chekhov, whom Welty wrote about, and on to writers who tell her Mississippi from the other side.
10 authors like Eudora Welty
Where to start if you loved Eudora Welty
If you loved the family talk of Delta Wedding, read Carson McCullers.
The Member of the Wedding: the same year, the same kind of wedding, seen by the girl who does not fit.
If you loved the stories, read Katherine Anne Porter.
Pale Horse, Pale Rider: three short novels by the writer who introduced Welty to readers.
If you loved The Golden Apples, read Elizabeth Strout.
Olive Kitteridge: thirteen linked stories, one small town in Maine.
If you want the same state from another side, read Jesmyn Ward.
Salvage the Bones: a family in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, in the days around Hurricane Katrina.
If you want more Welty, start with A Curtain of Green.
Then read The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), The Golden Apples (1949) and her memoir One Writer’s Beginnings (1984).
Frequently asked questions about authors like Eudora Welty
Who writes like Eudora Welty?
Katherine Anne Porter, Flannery O’Connor and Elizabeth Strout are the closest. Porter was her mentor, O’Connor her rival in the Southern short story, and Strout writes linked stories about one small town.
Is Eudora Welty like Flannery O'Connor?
They share the comic monologue and the small Southern town, but O’Connor’s stories end in violence and grace, while Welty’s more often end in forgiveness and family.
What should I read after The Optimist's Daughter?
Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939) and Claire Keegan’s Foster (2010) are both short, exact books about family and what goes unsaid.
Which Eudora Welty book should I read first?
Start with the stories in A Curtain of Green (1941), which include “Why I Live at the P.O.”, or with The Optimist’s Daughter (1972), her Pulitzer-winning short novel.
Did Eudora Welty write about civil rights?
Yes. “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”, published in The New Yorker in July 1963 after the murder of Medgar Evers, is told by the killer.
Is there anything new from Eudora Welty?
Welty died in 2001, so there are no new books. On 1 January 2026 Mississippi’s float in the 137th Rose Parade included her among six Mississippi authors.
Sources
- Eudora Welty — Wikipedia
- Daring from Within: Eudora Welty — National Trust for Historic Preservation
- Where Creativity Blooms: Mississippi Rose Parade float — Mississippi Free Press
- Eudora Welty and Anton Chekhov: A Long Intimacy Between Strangers — RUDN Journal
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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