Elizabeth Spencer was the 1996-1997 recipient of the John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence. She is best known for her 1960 novella, The Light in the Piazza. Elizabeth was born in 1921 in Carrollton, Mississippi. She went to Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi, and then Vanderbilt, where she got her M.A. degree in 1942. Her southern roots are very evident in works such as The Voice at the Back Door (1956).

To date, Spencer has authored nine novels, three collections of short stories, while also working on an as-yet incomplete memoir. Much of her best fiction is set in Italy. An example of this is her 1965 novel, Knights and Dragons. Although Elizabeth Spencer has spent most of her adult life in Montreal, Canada, she now resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Selected other works:

The Snare (1972)

The Salt Line (1985)

The Stories of Elizabeth Spencer (1976)