Background
Mark Spencer was born on February 12, 1956, in Richmond, Virginia, United States, a son of Howard Spencer, a farmer, and Evelyn (Morris) Spencer, an executive secretary.
Mark Spencer earned his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at the University of Cincinnati in 1979.
Then he earned his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Bowling Green State University in 1981.
He did his Ph.D. work at Oklahoma State University in 1981-1982.
(When Mark Spencer and his family moved into the beautiful...)
When Mark Spencer and his family moved into the beautiful old Allen House in Monticello, Arkansas, they were aware of its notorious reputation for being haunted. According to local lore, the troubled spirit of society belle Ladell Allen, who had mysteriously committed suicide in the master bedroom in 1948, still roamed the grand historic mansion. Yet, Mark remained skeptical - until he and his family began encountering faceless phantoms, a doppelganger spirit, and other paranormal phenomena. Ensuing ghost investigations offered convincing evidence that six spirits, including Ladell, inhabited their home. But the most shocking event occurred the day Mark followed a strange urge to explore the attic and found, crammed under a floorboard, secret love letters that touchingly depict Ladell Allen's forbidden, heart-searing romance - and shed light on her tragic end.
https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Love-Story-Ghosts-Allen/dp/0738730734/?tag=2022091-20
(Forty-nine-year-old Southern society belle Ladell Allen c...)
Forty-nine-year-old Southern society belle Ladell Allen commits suicide on Christmas night 1948 in the wake of yet another failed love affair. The dead Ladell spends the next six decades revisiting the past, observing the living Ladell, in an attempt to understand what her purpose in life was, as well as watching the world change within and beyond her home, the Allen Mansion, as she tries to figure out what her purpose in death might be. Looking back, she is mortified by her own foolish desperation in life. Moving forward, she is touched, amazed, and horrified by the living tenants in her home, some of whom she reaches out to with affection, some of whom she terrorizes. She also interacts with other ghosts - her sister, her mother, her son, her infant brother, and her beloved papa, who persistently over the decades pulls up in front of the Allen Mansion in a ghostly black Cadillac, urging her to join him for a ride into the unknown, a ride she is unwilling to take until she has answers to her questions about the meaning of her life and death.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BDRPCBK/?tag=2022091-20
(For the aspiring short-story writer or novelist, this eng...)
For the aspiring short-story writer or novelist, this engaging and informal guide of 10,000 words covers all the essentials you need to know. For experienced fiction writers, it will remind you of basic truths of storytelling you might have lost sight of. Topics covered include "The Rules of Fiction Club"; "The Importance of the Small Details: Creating Fiction Brush Stroke by Brush Stroke"; showing vs telling; writing dialogue; balancing narration, dialogue, and description; structure, plot, and pace; point of view; flashbacks; grammar; punctuation; common usage and style errors; word count; writers groups; "Why We Write".
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1500492213/?tag=2022091-20
Mark Spencer was born on February 12, 1956, in Richmond, Virginia, United States, a son of Howard Spencer, a farmer, and Evelyn (Morris) Spencer, an executive secretary.
Mark Spencer earned his Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at the University of Cincinnati in 1979. Then he earned his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Bowling Green State University in 1981 and did Ph.D. work at Oklahoma State University in 1981-1982.
Mark Spencer worked as an assistant professor of English at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield from 1983 to 1987. In 1987 he became an associate professor of English at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Mark Spencer has published in a variety of genres: main stream, literary, paranormal, and horror. His books include the novels The Weary Motel, Ghost Walking, The Masked Demon, Love and Reruns in Adams County, An Untimely Frost; the nonfiction novel A Haunted Love Story: the Ghosts of the Allen House; and the short-story collections Wedlock, Spying on Lovers, and Trespassers.
He has published over 100 short stories and articles in a wide variety of literary magazines, including The Laurel Review, Short Story, The Chariton Review, South Dakota Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Kansas Quarterly, Texas Review, The New Review, Z Miscellaneous, The Maryland Review, Natural Bridge, New Mexico Humanities Review, The MacGuffin, Amarillo Bay, Storyglossia, Tattoo Highway, Steel City Review, Blood Lotus, The Istanbul Literature Review, and Bewildering Stories.
Currently, Spencer is a professor in the MFA program and Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Several times, he has been named to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
(When Mark Spencer and his family moved into the beautiful...)
(Forty-nine-year-old Southern society belle Ladell Allen c...)
(For the aspiring short-story writer or novelist, this eng...)
Quotations: "I try to write fiction that is both literary and accessible and that is - like life - both funny and sad. I like it when an English professor appreciates my work, but I love it when a high-school girl who works at Taco Bell does. I always strive to write vividly and honestly enough so that virtually every reader will recognize in my work something universal and true."
Mark Spencer married Diana Lynn Harvey on July 19, 1980, but the couple divorced in March 1992. He has two children from the first marriage, Krista and David.
Spencer married his second wife Cindy Renee O'Brient on October 17, 1994. The couple has one child, Brontë.