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Jackson, Miss. — Haley Crigger, a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati, has been named the Eudora Welty Research Fellow for 2023. Haley will use archival holdings in the Eudora Welty Collection housed at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) to research the life and works of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty.

“My hope for my time at MDAH is to obtain a more robust understanding of Eudora Welty’s aesthetic and metaphysical relationship with the Southern literary imagination, the landscape Flannery O’Connor referred to as ‘hardly Christ-centered,’ but ‘most certainly Christ-haunted,’ ” said Crigger.

Established in 2010 by MDAH and the Eudora Welty Foundation, the fellowship seeks to encourage and support research of the Eudora Welty Collection by graduate students.

“We’re grateful to the Eudora Welty Foundation for their continued support of our fellows,” said David Pilcher, director of the MDAH Archives and Record Services Division. “I am certain Haley will gain great insight this summer, making excellent use of newly digitized materials and extensive paper archives within the Eudora Welty Collection.”

After receiving a BA in English from Centre College in 2013, Crigger pursed a MFA in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 2018. She is currently working towards her PhD in creative writing and literature at the University of Cincinnati and will use the $5,000 fellowship award to cover her travel, housing, and other expenses incurred while doing her primary Welty research at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson.

The Eudora Welty Collection is the world’s finest collection of materials related to Welty and one of the most varied literary collections in the United States. The collection includes manuscripts, letters, photographs, drawings, essays, and film and video footage that spans Welty’s entire life.

Beginning in 1957, and over the course of more than forty years, Welty donated materials to the department, primarily literary manuscripts and photographs. At her death, her remaining papers were bequeathed to MDAH and included unpublished manuscripts and 14,000 items of correspondence with family, friends, scholars, young writers, and noted writers.

The Eudora Welty Collection may be accessed at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building at 200 North Street in Jackson. For more information on the archival collection or the Eudora Welty Research Fellowship, contact Elisabeth Cambonga at 601-576-6868, or by email at ecambonga@mdah.ms.gov.