[2] Her childhood home is still standing and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 prior to being delisted in 1986 because a dormer and deck were added to the roof.

"[4] Her father, who worked as an insurance executive, was intrigued by gadgets and machines and inspired in Welty a love of mechanical things.

[6] Near the time of her high school graduation, Welty moved with her family to a house built for them at 1119 Pinehurst Street, which remained her permanent address until her death.

She took a job at a local radio station and wrote as a correspondent about Jackson society for the Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal.

She gained a wider view of Southern life and the human relationships that she drew from for her short stories.

[10] During this time she also held meetings in her house with fellow writers and friends, a group she called the Night-Blooming Cereus Club.

[11] She strengthened her place as an influential Southern writer when she published her first book of short stories, A Curtain of Green.

Her new-found success won her a seat on the staff of The New York Times Book Review, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship which enabled her to travel to France, England, Ireland, and Germany.

[12] While abroad, she spent some time as a resident lecturer at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, becoming the first woman to be permitted into the hall of Peterhouse College.

[14] After Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi, was assassinated, she published a story in The New Yorker, "Where Is the Voice Coming From?".

[12][15] She lectured at Harvard University, and eventually adapted her talks as a three-part memoir titled One Writer's Beginnings.

"[18] Throughout the 1970s, Welty carried on a lengthy correspondence with novelist Ross Macdonald, creator of the Lew Archer series of detective novels.

Her work attracted the attention of author Katherine Anne Porter, who became a mentor to her and wrote the foreword to Welty's first collection of short stories, A Curtain of Green, in 1941.

Like most of her short stories, Welty masterfully captures Southern idiom and places importance on location and customs.

[25] Welty's debut novel, The Robber Bridegroom (1942), deviated from her previous psychologically inclined works, presenting static, fairy-tale characters.

Some critics suggest that she worried about "encroaching on the turf of the male literary giant to the north of her in Oxford, Mississippi—William Faulkner",[26] and therefore wrote in a fairy-tale style instead of a historical one.

Most critics and readers saw it as a modern Southern fairy-tale and noted that it employs themes and characters reminiscent of the Grimm Brothers' works.

Welty personally influenced several young Mississippi writers in their careers including Richard Ford,[30][31] Ellen Gilchrist,[32] and Elizabeth Spencer.

[citation needed] Welty said that her interest in the relationships between individuals and their communities stemmed from her natural abilities as an observer.

Welty shows that this piano teacher's independent lifestyle allows her to follow her passions, but also highlights Miss Eckhart's longing to start a family and to be seen by the community as someone who belongs in Morgana.

Within the tale, the main character, Phoenix, must fight to overcome the barriers within the vividly described Southern landscape as she makes her trek to the nearest town.

Phoenix, the old Black woman, is described as being clad in a red handkerchief with undertones of gold and is noble and enduring in her difficult quest for the medicine to save her grandson.

Welty also refers to the figure of Medusa, who in "Petrified Man" and other stories is used to represent powerful or vulgar women.