Scott Spencer (author)

Scott Spencer (born September 1, 1945, in Washington, D.C.) is an American author who has written eight novels.

"Endless Love" and "A Ship Made of Paper" have both been nominated for the National Book Award. "Endless Love" has sold over 2 million copies.

Interviewed in the New York Times, Spencer once said, "It may be time for serious, literary novelists to take back some of the subject matter we abandoned to hack novelists, and the movies." Joyce Carol Oates, writing about "A Ship Made of Paper" in The New Yorker, said, “Like Cheever, Spencer has imagined for his…infatuated lover melodramatic crises that verge on the surreal; like John Updike, Spencer is a poet-celebrant of Eros, lyrically precise in his descriptions of lovers’ fantasies, lovers’ lovemaking, lovers’ bodies…” The Wall Street Journal has said, "There are few novelists alive who use the English language as Scott Spencer does...Every ache of feeling, every failed effort at restraint, every attempt at self-deception is captured in precise, beautifully cadenced prose."

"Endless Love" (by Franco Zeffirelli in 1981) and "Waking the Dead" (by Jodie Foster and Keith Gordon in 2000) have both been made into films. The former was directed by Franco Zeffirelli, and the latter was produced by Jodie Foster and directed by Keith Gordon.

Spencer has also worked as a journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harpers Magazine, GQ, O, The Oprah Magazine, and he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.

He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and Williams College. Spencer is an alumnus of Roosevelt University. In 2004, he was the recipient of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship. For the past twenty years, he has lived in a small town in upstate New York.

Spencer's most recent novel is titled "Willing" and was released on March 11, 2008.

The "Men in Black" movies are not based upon Spencer's novel "Men in Black".

Tom Cruise made his film debut as a bit player in "Endless Love".

List of works

Scott Spencer's Novels (in order of release):

* "Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball" (1975)
* "Preservation Hall" (1976)
* "Endless Love" (1979)
* "Waking the Dead" (1986)
* "Secret Anniversaries" (1990)
* "Men In Black" (1995)
* "Rich Man's Table" (1998)
* "A Ship Made of Paper" (2003)
* "Willing" (March 2008)

References

* Appearance on the National Public Radio (NPR) radio program "Fresh Air" - June 20, 2003

External links

* [http://wiredforbooks.org/scottspencer/ 1986 audio interview with Scott Spencer at Wired for Books.org] by Don Swaim
* [http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/15119/Scott_Spencer/index.aspx Scott Spencer's page @ Harper Collins]
*imdb name|id=0818098|name=Scott Spencer
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88497191 Audio interview with Scott Spencer, and first chapter of "Willing"] on National Public Radio (NPR) radio program "Fresh Air" - March 19, 2008