Elizabeth Spires

Elizabeth Spires
Jerry Bauer

I was born in Lancaster, Ohio, in 1952 and grew up nearby in Circleville.  By the time I was twelve, I had decided to be a writer.  My plan (influenced by my admiration for Flannery O’Connor) was to become a short story writer.   For some reason, that never happened.  Instead, in college at Vassar, I began writing poetry seriously.  This has led to my publishing four collections of poetry for adults (Globe, Swan’s Island, Annonciade, and Worldling).  My daughter, Celia, who is seven, defined poetry one day (very appropriately, I thought) as “playing with words.”  I have “played with words,” I believe, in my writing for children: in two books of riddles, With One White Wing and Riddle Road, and, of course, in The Mouse of Amherst.
 
Ever since I was a girl, I have admired and loved Emily Dickinson’s poetry.  I have memorized many of her poems, and recently wrote a short piece on my first encounter with Dickinson for The Bulletin of the Poetry Society of America.  Although I didn’t analyze my reasons for writing The Mouse of Amherst while I was writing it, I think now that I wanted to express the depth and complexity of poetic inspiration, friendship, and apprenticeship.  That’s thinking of it purely in adult terms.  But I hope children will identify with Emmaline, the novice poet, and perhaps be inspired to write some poems themselves . . . for no reason other than the sheer joy of expressing themselves when they feel an emotion or idea bubbling up inside them.  Ideally, I hope my writing for children will lead them somewhere they have never been imaginatively, and that it will help them believe and delight in the power of words and language!
 
Elizabeth's work includes The Mouse of Amherst (1999) A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the year, I Am Arachne (2001), and her latest novel, I Heard God Talking to Me (2009)


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Elizabeth Spires Reading and Presentation

Sept. 19, 2009. Elizabeth Spires reads from I Heard God Talking to Me at the Walters Art Musuem in Baltimore. Sponsored by Smartish Pace.

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I Am Arachne
I Am Arachne

Elizabeth Spires; Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein
Square Fish

Inspiring and timeless Greek and Roman tales told in first person accounts of dramatic events with art from Caldecott Medal winner, Mordicai Gerstein....


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I Heard God Talking to Me
I Heard God Talking to Me

Elizabeth Spires
Frances Foster Books

One night in the early 1930s, William Edmondson, the son of former slaves and a janitor in Nashville, Tennessee, heard God speaking to him. And so he began to...


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The Mouse of Amherst
The Mouse of Amherst

Elizabeth Spires; Illustrated by Claire A. Nivola
Sunburst Paperbacks

A mouse's-eye-view of Emily Dickinson When a mouse named Emmaline takes up residence behind the wainscoting of Emily Dickinson's bedroom, she wonders what...


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