Elizabeth Spencer to be on N.C. Bookwatch this Sunday

From Landscapes of the Heart: A Documentary about Spencer 

If you're interested in casual elegance, and a 93-year-old woman who's as with-it as most 50-year-olds, then to turn on North Carolina Bookwatch at noon on UNC-TV this Sunday for host D.G. Martin's interview with prize-winning novelist and short story writer Elizabeth Spencer of Chapel Hill.
Her latest collection, "Starting Over," won the Rea Award for the Short Story last spring. The prize carries a $30,000 cash award, and Spencer told me she used some of the money to upgrade her garden.
Spencer is a native of Carrollton, Miss., and when she was a student at Belhaven College in Jackson, Miss., she met Eudora Welty, who lived across the street from the school. Welty joined with Spencer and a few other students to form a small writing group. Spencer and Welty became lifelong friends.
Spencer is also the author of the novella, "Light in the Piazza," later made into the 1960 film of the same name starring Olivia de Haviland.
Of "Starting Over," Malcolm Jones reviewing it in January in the New York Times, said, "Elizabeth Spencer seems to have spent her life watching, observing, always paying close attention, and for her it’s the whole truth or nothing. As far as I can tell, she never missed a thing. Judging from the stories in her latest collection, she’s not about to start now."

Sarah Dessen and Lee Smith to appear on segments of N..C. Bookwatch

Sarah Dessen

Bookwatch has become such a favorite in our house that we now record it. No matter the guest, the host, former Charlottean D.G. Martin, is himself a treat. No one is more animated, and no one works as charmingly to draw out the essence of the writer and his or her work. If you're new to the state, it's a wonderful introduction to the personalities and minds of our literary riches.

Lee Smith

This Sunday, Aug. 24, young adult writer Sarah Dessen will appear on the show.

 

Her most recent title, "The Moon and More," set on Emerald Isle, recently won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award in the young adult category. Lead character, Emaline, loses both her long-time local boyfriend and her newfound summer love. There's heartbreak, of course. But new beginnings await.


Bookwatch airs at noon on Sundays and at 5 p.m. on Thursdays on UNC-TV.

On Aug. 31, award-winning Hillsborough novelist Lee Smith will appear on Bookwatch. Her most recent novel, "Guests on Earth," includes a character based on Zelda Fitzgerald and her stay at the elegant and now-defunct Highland Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Asheville.