Eudora Welty was born in Jackson, Tennessee, on April 13, 1909. Her father was an insurance executive and her mother a notorious bibliophile (She once risked her life in a burning house to save a set of Dickens.) There were two younger brothers in the family, Edward and Walter.
Welty never married, remaining at home a great deal her life. She attended Mississippi State college for Women, the University of Wisconsin (Madison), and Columbia University; and, during the 'Thirties and 'Forties, traveled, taught school, and lectured. Actually, she settled in with her parents during the Great Depression. Among other things, she worked as a publicist for the WPA, and it was during this time that she began to take pictures of the poor blacks and their sad little houses. The best source of information about Eudora's growing up in Jackson, her relationships with her family, and her fascination with clocks and photography is her autobiographical excursion, One Writer's Beginnings. Five collections of her photographs have been collected, most noteworthy of which are One Time, One Place (1978) and Photographs.
Welty's medium of expression was, of course, writing; but photography came in a close second--until 1950 when she forgot her favorite camera (a Rolleiflex) in the Paris Metro. For that blunder she punished herself by refusing to replace it.
From 1933 to 1936 Welty traveled across Mississippi for the WPA, storing up images that would be used in her short stories. Her first book, A Curtain of Green, a collection of short stories, came out in 1941, a direct result of these rural travels. Her main characters were lonely and eccentric young women in small town settings, most of them fascinated with the marriage bed and aborted or failed relationships with men.
Eudora died in her parents' house in Jackson on July 23, 2001, a grand lady who was active until the end.

A listing of her books:

Death of a Traveling Salesman (1936)
The Robber Bridgegroom (1942, a novella)
The Wide Net, and Other Stories (1943)
Delta Wedding (1946)
Music from Spain (1948)
The Golden Apples (1949)
Selected Stories (1953)
The Ponder Heart (1954)
The Bride of the Innisfallen, and Other Stories (1955)
A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1964) Ê
The Shoe Bird (1964, juvenile)Ê
Thirteen Stories (1965)
A Sweet Devouring (1969, nonfiction)
Losing Battles (1970, a novel)
"A Flock of Guinea Hens Seen from a Car" (1970, a poem)
One Time, One Place: A Snapshot Album (1971)
The Optimist's Daughter (1972, a novel)
The Eye of the Story (1978, selected essays and reviews)
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1980)
One Writer's Beginnings (1984, autobiography)
Photographs (1989)