Elizabeth Spencer

Life and Orange County connections

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1. 1986–1992 Elizabeth Spencer teaches in UNC's creative writing program Spencer and her husband John Rusher moved from Montreal to Chapel Hill in 1986, and she joined UNC's Creative Writing Program as a visiting writer that fall, teaching until 1992. She lived in Chapel Hill for the rest of her life. Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: John RusherSearch the index · UNC English and Comparative Literature: Elizabeth Spencer, Author and Former UNC Visiting Writer, Dies at 98
2. July 20, 1986 Six writers read at the Hardback Cafe to raise money against the Shearon Harris nuclear plant Joe Ashby Porter, Jill McCorkle, Clyde Edgerton, Lee Smith, Garrett Epps and Elizabeth Spencer read from their work at a $50-a-plate benefit dinner at the Hardback Cafe, raising over $2,000 for the Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris. Organizers turned away 30 ticket requests because of the room's fire-code limit. People: Lee Smith, Clyde Edgerton, Jill McCorkle Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Joe Ashby Porter, Garrett EppsSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, July 24, 1986, p. 1
3. September 25, 1986 Jill McCorkle reads To Kill a Mockingbird at a Banned Books Week protest in the Pit For National Banned Books Week, UNC students and faculty read from challenged books in the Pit, in a program sponsored by the Bull's Head Bookstore with national bookseller and library associations. Jill McCorkle, then a creative writing lecturer, read from To Kill a Mockingbird with a student, Greg Meyjes; Elizabeth Spencer and Thadious M. Davis also read. People: Jill McCorkle, Elizabeth Spencer Place: Chapel Hill · Also named: Greg Meyjes, Thadious M. DavisSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1986, p. 1 (Readers take banned books off the shelf and into the Pit)
4. October 3, 1988 Eudora Welty speaks at UNC's Oktoberfest honoring Louis Rubin and Thomas Wolfe Novelist Eudora Welty gave the keynote of the 1988 Oktoberfest to about 1,500 people in Memorial Hall, an event held by the English department and the Department of Social and Administrative Medicine to mark the retirement of Professor Louis Rubin and the 50th anniversary of Thomas Wolfe's death. She praised Rubin's writing and his founding of the Algonquin press in Carrboro. People: Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Spencer Place: Memorial Hall, University, Chapel Hill · Also named: Louis Rubin, Thomas WolfeSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 4, 1988, p. 4
5. April 4, 1998 Elizabeth Spencer reads in Memorial Hall at the North Carolina Literary Festival Spencer gave a program in Memorial Hall on the Saturday of the North Carolina Literary Festival at UNC, sponsored by the Center for the Study of the American South. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Memorial HallSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, March 31, 1998, p. 15 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, April 6, 1998, p. 3
6. October 3, 2002 Elizabeth Spencer gives the Thomas Wolfe Prize lecture at UNC Spencer received UNC's third Thomas Wolfe Prize, given by the English department to writers with distinguished bodies of work, and gave the free public Thomas Wolfe Lecture in the Hanes Art Center auditorium. Place: Chapel Hill · Also mentions: Hanes Art CenterSearch the index · The Daily Tar Heel, October 2, 2002, p. 2 · Also: The Daily Tar Heel, October 4, 2002, p. 5