SOURCE: Spencer, Elizabeth, and Amanda Smith. “Publisher's Weekly Interviews: Elizabeth Spencer.” Publishers Weekly 234, no. 11 (9 September 1988): 111-12.

In the following interview, Spencer offers insight into her life and work.

Elizabeth Spencer is part of the grand tradition of Southern writers. The distinguished novelist and short-story writer, author of such works as The Light in the Piazza and The Voice at the Back Door, Spencer has just published the latest work in her 40-year career, a masterly collection of short stories, Jack of Diamonds (Fiction Forecasts, June 5).

Spencer lives now in the South, after being away from the area physically if not spiritually for more than 30 years. She and her husband make their home in Chapel Hill, where two years ago Spencer came to teach creative writing at the University of North Carolina. They live in a pleasant suburban house graced by tall pines that drop cones on the front...