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Local figure

Elizabeth Spencer

Novelist Elizabeth Spencer moved to Chapel Hill in 1986, taught as a visiting writer in UNC's Creative Writing Program from 1986 to 1992, and died at her Chapel Hill home in 2019. UNC's English department gave her its Thomas Wolfe Prize in 2002. Her best-known fiction is The Light in the Piazza (1960).

Source: UNC English and Comparative Literature: Elizabeth Spencer, Author and Former UNC Visiting Writer, Dies at 98

On the Friends’ Local Authors roster → · Library of Congress authority record ↗

1 indexed work is connected with this person, and the index includes one work by Elizabeth Spencer.

Indexed works

Works in the index that concern this person directly, or were written by them. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it; background reading with wider context sits further down.

By Elizabeth Spencer

Elizabeth Spencer papers, 1911-2018 (bulk 1999-2003)

Spencer, Elizabeth, 1921-2019 · 1911

The novelist Elizabeth Spencer, 1921 to 2019, left papers spanning 1911 to 2018 with the bulk from 1999 to 2003. Subjects include many American writers, among them Eudora Welty, Walker Percy, Ellen Douglas, Lee Smith and Allan Gurganus, and they cover her Mississippi upbringing at Carrollton and her years on the faculty at Chapel Hill. Part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC, collection 5145.

UNC

Life and Orange County connections

Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See these 5 dated events in the chronology →

  1. 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.Search the index · UNC English and Comparative Literature: Elizabeth Spencer, Author and Former UNC Visiting Writer, Dies at 98
  2. 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 McCorkleSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, July 24, 1986, page 1
  3. 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: Elizabeth SpencerSearch the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, September 26, 1986, p. 1 (Readers take banned books off the shelf and into the Pit)
  4. 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.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, March 31, 1998, page 15
  5. 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.Search the index · DigitalNC: The Daily Tar Heel, October 2, 2002, page 2

Places in this person’s story

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Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

  • Memorial Hall University buildings and grounds · Chapel Hill · 1 event here

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Named with them in the chronology

People named in the same dated entries as Elizabeth Spencer, those sharing the most entries first. Each line links one of the shared entries in the chronology, where its source is cited. A shared entry shows these people in the same event, not how well they knew each other.

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Collections and databases

  • NC LIVE: prepared search for Elizabeth Spencer Library card An advanced search of the state’s shared databases already scoped to Orange County’s places and this subject; edit it freely, and sign in through your North Carolina library to read
  • Ancestry Library Edition In the libraryOrange County Public Library Census, birth, death and marriage records, and more, free on the public computers at OCPL libraries

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Books about Elizabeth Spencer

Books by Elizabeth Spencer

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Historical records and collections

Searched with the catalog heading Spencer, Elizabeth, 1921-2019, which helps separate this person from others with the same name. The historical records searches look for the name as written, so they can turn up other people with the same name. Each link opens that catalog’s own results in a new tab. The Friends have not reviewed what they return.

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