Story Guides & Teaching Resources

Featured Works

• The Optimist’s Daughter

  • Reader’s Guide

  • Story Synopsis

• “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”

  • A powerful story written in response to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers.
    Teaching Resources

    • The Early Sixties in Mississippi (PDF)

    • Life Into Fiction (PDF)

    • Audio: Dr. Rush Rehm’s Introduction & Reading

  • Content Note: This story contains explicitly offensive language, as it is narrated in the first person from the point of view of the assassin.

  • Copyright Notice: The recording is protected under copyright law and may be used for educational purposes only.

• “The Whistle” — Complete Educational Packet

  • Comprehensive materials exploring Welty’s story of rural Mississippi during the 1930s.

Included Resources

• Discussion Guide on Creativity

• Excerpt from Suzanne Marrs, One Writer’s Imagination

• Tenant Farming Background Essay

Creative Connections

• “Pleasant Dreams” — song by Claire Holley inspired by “The Whistle”

• Holley’s Artist Statement & Lyrics

Photographs by Welty

• “A House with Bottle Trees”

• “Tomato Packers’ Recess”
  
  

Essays & Articles About Welty

A curated collection of essays that deepen understanding of Welty’s life, themes, and creative process.

• Timeline

• Bibliography

• Lye Poisoning in “A Worn Path”

• Humor in Welty’s Fiction

• Stories of the Great Depression

• Eudora Welty Goes to the Movies

• Autobiography in Welty’s Fiction

• “Eudora Welty as Photographer” — Smithsonian Magazine

• New York Times Obituary

• “A Daring Life”

Recommended Websites & External Resources

Explore additional online materials about Welty:

• Eudora Welty House & Garden — Mississippi Department of Archives & History

• Educator Field Trip Guide — Welty House & Garden

• Institute for Southern Storytelling at MC

• The Eudora Welty Review

• The Greenwood Cemetery