Elizabeth Spencer (writer)

{{Infobox person

|name = Elizabeth Spencer

|image = Elizabeth Spencer (writer).jpg

|birth_date = {{birth date|1921|7|19}}

|birth_place = Carrollton, Mississippi, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|2019|12|22|1921|7|19}}

|death_place = Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S.

|education = Belhaven University (BA)
Vanderbilt University (MA)

}}

Elizabeth Spencer (July 19, 1921 – December 22, 2019){{cite news |last= McFadden |first= Robert D. |title= Elizabeth Spencer, Author of 'The Light in the Piazza,' Dies at 98 |date= December 23, 2019 |newspaper= The New York Times |access-date= December 23, 2019 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/23/arts/elizabeth-spencer-dead.html |language= en-US |issn= 0362-4331}} was an American writer. Spencer's first novel, Fire in the Morning, was published in 1948.{{Cite journal|last=Flint|first=F. Cudworth|title=Some First Novels|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27537977|journal=The Sewanee Review|volume=58|issue=1|pages=144–158|issn=0037-3052 |date= March 1950 |publisher= jstor.org|jstor=27537977 }} She wrote a total of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir (Landscapes of the Heart, 1998), and a play (For Lease or Sale, 1989). Her novella The Light in the Piazza (1960) was adapted for the screen in 1962 and transformed into a Broadway musical of the same name in 2005. She was a five-time recipient of the O. Henry Award for short fiction.{{Cite web|title=The O. Henry Prize Stories|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/anchor/ohenry/winners/past.html#jump_s|access-date=2021-06-07|website=www.randomhouse.com}}

Spencer's themes relate to tension between the individual and the group, and deal with how family or community ties support but also bind the individual's identity. She writes about this as it concerns the inner lives of her female characters, many of whom struggle to establish a fruitful life independent of society's narrow restrictions.{{cite journal

|last1= Roberts

|first1= Terry

|editor-last1= Meanor

|editor-first1= Patrick

|editor-last2= Crane

|editor-first2= Gwen

|title= Elizabeth Spencer

|date= 2000

|orig-year=

|publisher= Gale Group

|journal= American Short-story Writers Since World War II.

|series= Second Series

|volume= 218

|location= Detroit

|url= https://siris-libraries.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=liball&source=~!silibraries&uri=full=3100001~!598577~!0#focus

|access-date=

}}

Early life and career

Born in Carrollton, Mississippi, Spencer was valedictorian of her graduating class at J. Z. George High School. She earned her BA at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi and a master's in literature at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1943. At Vanderbilt, Spencer studied with Donald Davidson.LaPointe, Michael, [https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/the-novel-that-elizabeth-spencer-wanted-to-be-remembered-for "The Novel That Elizabeth Spencer Wanted to Be Remembered For"], The New Yorker, May 20, 2021. Retrieved 2021-05-20.

Spencer taught at the junior college level at Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi for two years, then accepted a job with the Nashville Tennessean, but she soon returned to teaching, this time at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. In 1953, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship{{Cite web |url= https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/elizabeth-spencer/ |title= Elizabeth Spencer |publisher= John Simon Guggenheim Foundation |website= www.gf.org/fellows |language= en-US |access-date= January 16, 2020}} and left Mississippi to live in Italy and pursue writing full-time.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

Her third novel, begun in Florence, Italy, The Voice at the Back Door, was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1957. The prize ultimately wasn't awarded that year.

After her first three novels set in Mississippi, Spencer's career foundered for a while, for she was seen as a "Southern woman" writer, and not a literary figure. In 1981 Spencer published her collected Stories, with a foreword by Eudora Welty, and her standing was reestablished among critics, who took another look at her contributions.Roberts, T., Self and Community in the Fiction of Elizabeth Spencer (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1994)

Personal life

While in Italy, she met and married John Rusher of Cornwall, England. The couple moved to Montreal, Quebec in 1956, where they remained until moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 1986. She taught creative writing at Concordia University in Montreal, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill until her retirement. Rusher died in 1998, and Spencer continued to live in her Chapel Hill home until her death on 22 December 2019.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/elizabeth-spencer-prolific-short-story-writer-and-chronicler-of-the-south-dies-at-98/2019/12/23/e004b7a0-793d-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html|title=Elizabeth Spencer, prolific short-story writer and chronicler of the South, dies at 98|last=Smith|first=Harrison|date=|newspaper=Washington Post|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224035212/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/elizabeth-spencer-prolific-short-story-writer-and-chronicler-of-the-south-dies-at-98/2019/12/23/e004b7a0-793d-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html |archive-date=December 24, 2019 |access-date=2020-01-16}}

Spencer, through her mother's family, was a cousin of United States senator John McCain.

Awards and honors

Sidney Lanier Prize for Southern Literature, awarded by Mercer University, 2014
Lifetime Achievement Award of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters, 2009
PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction, 2007
Governor's Award for Achievement in Literature from the Mississippi Arts Commission, 2006
The William Faulkner Medal for Literary Excellence, awarded by The Faulkner House Society, New Orleans, 2002
Inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame, 2002
Thomas Wolfe Award for Literature given by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Morgan Foundation, 2002
Cleanth Brooks Medal for achievement awarded by the Fellowship of Southern Writers, 2001
Mississippi State Library Association Award for non-fiction, 1999
Fortner Award for Literature, St. Andrews Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, North Carolina, 1998
Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award for fiction, 1997
J. William Corrington Award for fiction, Centenary College, Shreveport, Louisiana, 1997
Charter Member Fellowship of Southern Writers, 1987; Vice-Chancellor, 1993–1997
North Carolina Governor's Award for Literature, 1994
John Dos Passos Award for Literature, 1992
Salem Award for Distinction in Letters, Salem College, 1992
National Endowment for the Arts Senior Fellowship in Literature Grant, 1988
Election to the American Institute (now American Academy) of Arts and Letters, 1985
Award of Merit Medal for the Short Story, American Academy, 1983
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1983
Bellaman Award, 1968
Donnelly Fellowship, Bryn Mawr College, 1962
McGraw-Hill Fiction Fellowship, 1960
First Rosenthal Award, American Academy, 1957
Kenyon Review Fiction Fellowship, 1956–57
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 1953
Recognition Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1952
Mississippi Writers Trail historical marker, 2019

Works

= Novels =

Fire in the Morning (1948, Dodd, Mead / 2012, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-1-61703-618-7}})
This Crooked Way (1952, Dodd, Mead / 2012, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-1-61703-218-9}})
The Voice at the Back Door (1956, McGraw-Hill / 1994, Louisiana State University Press; {{ISBN|978-0-8071-1927-3}})
Knights and Dragons (1965, McGraw-Hill; {{ISBN|978-0-07-060145-1}})
No Place for an Angel (1967, McGraw-Hill / 2020, Liveright; {{ISBN|978-1-63149-063-7}})
The Snare (1972, McGraw-Hill; {{ISBN|978-0-07-060178-9}} / 2012, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-1-61703-686-6}})
The Salt Line (1984, Doubleday; {{ISBN|978-0-385-15698-1}} / 1995, Louisiana State University Press; {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2029-3}})
The Night Travellers (1991, Viking Press; {{ISBN|978-0-670-83915-5}} / 2012, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-1-61703-240-0}})

= Short story collections =

Ship Island and Other Stories (1968, McGraw-Hill; {{ISBN|978-0-07-060182-6}})
The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer (1981, Doubleday; {{ISBN|978-0-385-15697-4}} / 1983, Penquin Books; {{ISBN|978-0-14-006436-0}})
Marilee: Three Stories (1981, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-0-87805-141-0}})
Jack of Diamonds and Other Stories (1988, Viking Press; {{ISBN|978-0-670-82261-4}} / 1989, Penquin Books; {{ISBN|978-0-14-012252-7}})
On the Gulf (1991, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-0-87805-507-4}})
The Light in the Piazza and Other Italian Tales (1960, McGraw-Hill / 1996, University Press of Mississippi; {{ISBN|978-0-87805-837-2}})
The Southern Woman (2001, The Modern Library; {{ISBN|978-0-679-64218-3}} / 2009, The Modern Library; {{ISBN|978-0-8129-8076-9}} / 2021, The Modern Library; {{ISBN|978-0-5932-4118-9}}"Southern Woman: Selected Fiction", amazon.com. Retrieved 2021-05-20.)
Starting Over (2014, Liveright; {{ISBN|978-0-87140-681-1}} / 2020, Liveright; {{ISBN|978-0-87140-298-1}})

= Memoir =

Landscapes of the Heart: A Memoir (1997, Random House; {{ISBN|978-0-679-45739-8}} / 2003, Louisiana State University Press; {{ISBN|978-0-8071-2916-6}})

= Play =

For Lease or Sale (1989; produced by Playmakers, UNC Chapel Hill, 1989){{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

=Collection=

Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories: The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories (Library of America, June 1, 2021, {{ISBN|978-1-598-53686-7}})"Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (LOA #344)", amazon.com. Retrieved 2021-05-20.

=Short fiction=

Title	Publication	Collected in
class="wikitable" \|+
"Pilgrimage"	Virginia Quarterly Review (Summer 1950)	-
"The Little Brown Girl"	The New Yorker (July 20, 1957)	Ship Island
"The Eclipse"	The New Yorker (July 12, 1958)	The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
"First Dark"	The New Yorker (June 20, 1959)	rowspan=2\| Ship Island
"A Southern Landscape"	The New Yorker (March 26, 1960)
"The Light in the Piazza"	The New Yorker (June 18, 1960)	The Light in the Piazza
"Moon Rocket"	McCall's (October 1960)	The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
"The White Azalea"	Texas Quarterly (Winter 1961)	Ship Island
"A Beautiful Day for the Wedding"	Redbook (September 1962)	-
"The Atwater Fiancee"	The Montrealer (September 1963)	-
"The Visit"	Prairie Schooner (Summer 1964)	rowspan=3\| Ship Island
"The Fishing Lake"	The New Yorker (August 29, 1964)
"Ship Island"	The New Yorker (September 12, 1964)
"The Adult Holiday"	The New Yorker (June 12, 1965)	rowspan=7\| The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
"Knights & Dragons"	Redbook (July 1965)
"The Pincian Gate"	The New Yorker (April 16, 1966)
"The Absence"	The New Yorker (September 10, 1966)
"The Bufords" aka "Those Bufords"	McCall's (January 1967)
"A Bad Cold"	The New Yorker (May 27, 1967)
"On the Gulf"	Delta Review (February 1968)
"Judith Kane"	rowspan=3\| Ship Island (1968)	rowspan=3\| Ship Island
"Wisteria"
"The Day Before"
"Sharon"	The New Yorker (May 9, 1970)	rowspan=5\| The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
"Presents"	Shenandoah (Winter 1971)
"The Finder"	The New Yorker (January 23, 1971)
"Instrument of Destruction"	Mississippi Review (1972)
"A Kiss at the Door"	The Southern Review (Summer 1972)
"The Name of the Game"	McCall's (September 1972)	-
"A Christian Education"	The Atlantic (March 1974)	rowspan=9\| The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer
"Mr. McMillan"	The Southern Review (Winter 1975)
"Prelude to a Parking Lot"	The Southern Review (Summer 1976)
"I, Maureen"	New Canadian Stories (1976)
"Port of Embarkation"	The Atlantic (January 1977)
"Indian Summer"	Southern Review (Summer 1978)
"The Girl Who Loved Horses"	Ontario Review (Spring/Summer 1979)
"The Search"	Chatelaine (April 1979)
"Go South in Winter"	Journal of Canadian Fiction 23 (1979)
"Jean-Pierre"	The New Yorker (August 17, 1981)	rowspan=5\| Jack of Diamonds
"The Cousins"	The Southern Review (Spring 1985)
"Jack of Diamonds"	The Kenyon Review (Summer 1986)
"The Business Venture"	The Southern Review (Spring 1987)
"The Skater"	North American Review (June 1988)
"The Legacy"	The Legacy, Mud Puppy Press (1988)	rowspan=2\| On the Gulf
"A Fugitive's Wife"	On the Gulf (1991)
"The Weekend Travelers"	Story (Winter 1994)	rowspan=3\| The Southern Woman
"The Runaways"	Antaeus (Spring 1994)
"The Master of Shongalo"	The Southern Review (Winter 1995)
"The Everlasting Light"	Raleigh News & Observer (December 20, 1998)	Starting Over
"Owl"	Nightshade, ed. Robert Phillips (1999)	rowspan=2\| The Southern Woman
"First Child"	The Southern Review (Spring 2000)
"The Boy in the Tree"	The Southern Review (Summer 2004)	rowspan=8\| Starting Over
"Sightings"	The Hudson Review (July 2008)
"Return Trip"	Five Points: A Journal of Literature and Art (Spring 2009)
"Rising Tide"	Oxford American (July 2010)
"Christmas Longings"	Our State (December 2012)
"Blackie"	Epoch (2012)
"On the Hill"	Five Points (February 2013)
"The Wedding Visitor"	Zyzzyva (July 2013)

References

External links

{{Official website|http://www.elizabethspencerwriter.com/}}
{{cite journal |url= http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2417/the-art-of-fiction-no-110-elizabeth-spencer |title= Elizabeth Spencer, The Art of Fiction No. 110 |first= Robert |last= Phillips |journal= The Paris Review |issue= 111 |date= Summer 1989 |volume= Summer 1989 }}
Archives of Elizabeth Spencer [http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3672863&lang=eng (Elizabeth Spencer fonds, R11813)] are held at Library and Archives Canada

Category:Novelists from Mississippi

Category:American memoirists

Category:American women dramatists and playwrights

Category:People from Carrollton, Mississippi

Category:Writers from Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Category:McCain family

Category:University of Mississippi alumni

Category:1921 births

Category:2019 deaths

Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty

Category:American expatriates in Canada

Category:American expatriates in Italy