Eudora Welty writes to William Maxwell, the fiction editor of the New Yorker from 1936 to1975 and an acclaimed writer himself. Below, Welty writes Maxwell about one of his own stories, “What Every Boy Should Know,” which he had given Welty to read prior to publication. Welty goes on to discuss one of her writing techniques, in which she glued the pages of her story into one long strip, so that it “could be seen as a whole and at a glance.”
September 10th, 1953
Dear Bill,
It’s a lovely story, and I don’t know when I’ve seen interior and exterior marching so beautifully together. From the title on, it works its powers on those places in the heart and mind that most stories never reach, and don’t know how. The short paragraph about age and patience, patience and age, knowledge, disappointment, and unspokenness, is the finest to me, but I loved all of it. Thanks so much for letting me have a chance to read it—I’d be glad to know when to look for it in print.
I do see from this how elegant rubber cement is. I’m so used to writing with a pincushion that I don’t know if I can learn other ways or not, but I did go right down and buy a bottle of Carter’s. The smell stimulates the mind and brings up dreams of efficiency. Long ago when my stories were short (I wish they were back) I used to use ordinary paste and put the story together in one long strip, that could be seen as a whole and at a glance—helpful and realistic. When the stories got too long for the room I took them up on the bed or table & pinned and that’s when my worst stories were like patchwork quilts, you could almost read them in any direction. No man would be bemused like that, but Emmy will understand—and on the whole I like pins. The Ponder Heart was in straight pins, hat pins, corsage pins, and needles, and when I got through typing it out I had more pins than I started with. (So it’s economical.)
That was simply awful, that heat—and then to have the grippe on top of that. I hope they’ve gone off together, by now. It was cool here when we reached home, but today it’s 98—this is our hottest month. Our roses look nice too and are plentiful and glowing in color. It’s too hot here to safely take the cutting up, but we have it for you, and won’t send it too late for it to be sent out. We haven’t had rain yet—have you?—and water almost all day long.
I’m glad to know the fixes seemed all right—the main thing is to have all accurate, clear, and in the right place and time, which your questions were bent toward all of them, so I was exactly with you only maybe a little more lax on the idiom, which I may be too fond of? So pleased Howard did read the story and like it. Tell him hello from me.
The house sounds filled with exciting things, and sounds so pretty. Think of our picnic, Bill and Emmy, at the fall of the year. By the way, I was looking in a copy of an old herb book and found the enclosed recipes, which I thought you and Emmy with your herbs ought to see, if just to make you think. (Isn’t it just like that Lady Colchester to call for something hard, like Biathaganthis Frigidi?)
Yes, I’ve written the record people to ask that they send my allotment down—I thought they’d sent them to Diarmuid’s office, but there was only one for me and one for the office—D. took the office one home and played it and he and I neither one think it’s good. So don’t expect it to be anything but a souvenir—but I wanted you and Emmy to have it. If they’d let me hear a proof of it, I believe I could have made it better, but maybe I couldn’t have.
Elizabeth still likes her trip, and sends you hello and wishes. So does my mother, and so do I, with love to both, and thanks again for letting me read the story. A good story cheers me up more than anything, and this one does more than cheer. But I mean cheers me as a writer.
I loved the Pritchett—all that a man writes—by the way. If you see him, for I hear he was somewhere in America, Princeton or somewhere, can’t you pull more out of him?
Did you hear Stevenson Tuesday night? Oh, I know you did.
Love,
Eudora