SOURCE: "Some Talk about Autobiography: An Interview with Eudora Welty," in The Southern Review, Vol. 26, No. 1, January, 1990, pp. 81-8.

In the following interview, conducted in July, 1988, Welty discusses the autobiographical aspects of her novel The Optimist's Daughter which correspond to sections of her lectures presented in One Writer's Beginning.

The inspiration for this interview came partly as a result of a conference on southern autobiography at Arkansas State in the spring of 1988. In July of that year I visited Eudora Welty at her home in Jackson, Mississippi, where we discussed correspondences between One Writer's Beginnings and her highly autobiographical novel, The Optimist's Daughter. Miss Welty also relates memories and details which reveal more of her personal involvement in this novel.—SW

[Wolff:] One of the issues raised at the recent conference on southern autobiography is whether there is a distinct body of work that might be thought of...