Virginia Spencer Carr

Infobox Writer
name = Virginia Spencer Carr


birthdate = Birth date and age|1929|7|21|mf=y
birthplace = West Palm Beach, Florida
deathdate =
deathplace =
occupation = Biographer
genre = Biography, Literary criticism
notableworks = "The Lonely Hunger: A Biography of Carson McCullers"
influences =

Virginia Spencer Carr (born July 21, 1929 in West Palm Beach, Florida) is an award-winning biographer of Carson McCullers, John Dos Passos and Paul Bowles. [ [http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=354910&agid=13 Simon & Schuster] ] [ [http://www.library.villanova.edu/blueprints/2004/dec04.htm#Virginia "Virginia Spencer Carr: Biographer, professor, and Southern belle"] by Luisa Cywinski, Villanova University, December 2004 ]

Carr was also a college professor for more than 25 years at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia and Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Relationships with those she wrote about

Virginia Spencer Carr not only researched and wrote extensively about her subjects, but developed personal relationships with them - in particular Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles.

Tennessee Williams

Carr first met Tennessee Williams in the early 1970s when she was in the preparatory stages of writing her biography on Carson McCullers, "The Lonely Hunter".

Over the years, the two of them meet many times to discuss McCullers as well as other literary luminaries of Williams’ social circle. As a result, a friendship ensued and Carr, ultimately, garnered the rights to write Williams' biography. [ [http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/archives/2000/5mccullers.pdf "Exotic Birds of a Feather: Carson McCullers and Tennessee Williams," "The Tennessee Williams Annual Review 2000"] ]

Williams said upon his first meeting with Carr:

cquote|She had not told me what color hat or dress she’d be wearing or where she’d be seated, but despite my rather poor eyesight, I spotted her at once. Her face had a certain smile which gave it a certain charm and within a minute or two I had dismissed my reluctance to share with her my many reminiscences of Carson, for I knew at once that this lady from Georgia, Carson’s native state, was someone who valued the spirit and the writing of Mrs. McCullers as deeply as I did, and it seemed to me that the preparation of this biographical and critical work had been undertaken by Mrs. Carr much in the way that the devout once made pilgrimages to sanctified places.

I pause here, for a moment, knowing that I will certainly be accused of romantic excess.
20|20|Tennessee Williams' "Some Words Before," in "The Loney Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers", 1974| ["The Loney Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers," Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975]

Paul Bowles

In the last ten years of Paul Bowles' life, Carr formed a close, personal friendship with the reclusive, expatriot writer and composer. She originally met him when she traveled to Morocco in 1989 to interview him for a biography on Tennessee Williams that she was drafting.

During her visit with Bowles, she asked him to sign a copy of a recently published biography on him, "An Invisible Spectator", which prompted Bowles to state: ‘Does this book have anything to do with me?’ As a result of this comment and the later suggestion by Gore Vidal to postpone her work on Williams' biography and instead write one on Bowles, Carr changed gears and began creating what would become "Paul Bowles: A Life". Bowles agreed to offer Carr his no-strings-attached cooperation on the work. The payoff - after 12 years and thirteen trips to visit Bowles in Morocco, and arrangements she made for his medical treatment in Atlanta - was that Bowles revealed in person and in letters tantalizing revelations to Carr about his life and the people with whom he'd associated. It was understood from Carr that she couldn't publish any of this information until he had passed away.

Carr was able to read aloud to Bowles her completed work shortly before he died in 1999.

[ [http://www.observer.com/node/50016 "Bowles' Detached Life, Lonely, Artistic, but Satisfied" by Philip Weiss] ] , "The New York Observer", November 2004 ] [ [http://www.peterowen.com/pages/nonfic/paul_bowles.htm Peter Owen Publishers, London] ]

Family and home

Virginia Spencer Carr was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 21, 1929, to a pioneer family of the community. From the age of 12, Carr knew she wanted to someday be a writer. [ [http://library.villanova.edu/services/events/Backfile/carbio.htm Falvey Memorial Library Bio of Virginia Spencer Carr] by Villanova University ]

Awards, honors, and distinctions

* Pulitzer Prize finalists for both "The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers" and "Dos Passos: A life"
* Senior Fulbright professor in Poland (1980-1981)
* Southern Historical Association’s Francis Butler Simkins Prize ("The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers")
* Council of Authors and Journalist Nonfiction Prize ("Dos Passos: A life")
* John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor Emerita of English Letters at Georgia State University (1993-2003)
* South Atlantic Modern Language Association’s John Hurt Fisher Award (2004)
* Melon Fellowship recipient awarded by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin
* Stanley J. Kahrl Fellowship awarded by Harvard University [http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/featbook/thlh/expert/thlh_expert_02.jhtml Oprah.com] ] [ [http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/2006/3615.html South Carolina University Press] ]

Career

Carr received her doctorate degree from Florida State University in 1969.

She was a professor of English at Columbus State University, until she accepted to chair the Department of English at Georgia State University in 1985. In 1993, she was named the John B. and Elena Diaz Verson Amos Distinguished Professor in English Letters, a position she held until her retirement in 2003. [ [http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/mccullerscarson/inv/ Inventory of the Collections on Carson McCullers] , Duke University]

Current projects and recent publications

Virginia Spencer Carr is currently working on "Radiance: A Biography of Eudora Welty," as well as finishing work on her biography of Tennessee Williams.

elected works

Biographies

* "A Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers" with a foreword by Tennessee Williams (University of Georgia Press, Reprint, 2003)
* "Dos Passos: A Life" (Northwestern University Press, Reprint, 2004)
* "Paul Bowles: A Life" (Scribner 2004)

Other Works

* "Flowering Judas: Katherine Anne Porter (Women Writers: Text and Context)," Editor (Rutgers University Press, 1993)

* "Understanding Carson McCullers" (University of South Carolina Press, Reprint 2005)

References

External links

* [http://www.paulbowles.org/booksnew.html The Authorized Paul Bowles Web Site]
* [http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?sid=33&pid=354910 Simon & Schuster]
* [http://www.library.villanova.edu/blueprints/2004/dec04.htm#Virginia Villanova University]