EUDORA WELTY READS TO Y AUDIENCE

• Published in: The New York times
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Times Company 23.04.1985
• Edition: Late Edition (East Coast)
• Subjects: BOOKS AND LITERATURE; MCDOWELL, EDWIN; Welty, Eudora
• ISSN: 0362-4331

''The Wide Net'' is a short story published in 1943, and indeed none of Miss Welty's 14 volumes is a collection of poetry. But April is short-story month at the Poetry Center, for whom Miss Welty last read in 1953 and from whom - in the words of the director, Shelley Mason, she ''has graciously declined 31 annual invitations to appear again.'' A critically acclaimed author since her first collection of short stories, ''A Curtain of Green,'' was published in 1941, Miss [Eudora Welty], now 76, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973 for ''The Optimist's Daughter.'' She has won the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy (for ''The Ponder Heart'') and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Last year, A.L. Rowse, the Oxford scholar and critic, declared that ''of all living imaginative writers in the world today, she is the most suitable to be recognized by a Nobel Prize.'' While the Nobel has proved elusive, Miss Welty remains a great favorite of audiences of all ages. ''I don't do many readings, though, and I read mostly at colleges,'' she said. ''I don't have a tour or schedule, but I like to meet with the English departments or writing workshops. I feel a rapport with young people.''