Spark, Debra (1962 - )

Genre: General Fiction, Non-Fiction, Short Stories

Debra Spark was born in Massachusetts on June 17, 1962, graduated from Yale University in 1984, and received a MFA in fiction writing from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1986. She now lives in North Yarmouth, Maine and is a professor of English at Colby College in Waterville, Maine where she has also been a director of its creative writing program. Spark is also an instructor in the MFA Program at Warren Wilson College, and she's lectured in writing at Tufts University, Emerson College, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, among other schools.

Spark's work has appeared in Ploughshares, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yankee, Food and Wine, Down East, and other publications. Her essay, 'Last Things,' about her younger sister's death from breast cancer, is included in the book Sorrow's Company: Writers on Loss and Grief (ed. DeWitt Henry, 2001).

Selected Bibliography

  • Curious Attractions: Essays on Writing (2005): nine essays on fiction writing
  • The Ghost of Bridgetown (2001)
  • Coconuts for the Saint (novel, 1994/1996)
  • On the Tail of the Dog Star (short stories, 1990)
  • 20 Under 30: Best Stories by America's New Young Writers (1986), which was reissued as 20 Under 30: Early Works from Today's Influential Writers, editor (1996)
  • The Pretty Girl: Novella and Stories (2012)
  • And Then Something Happened: Essays on Fiction Writing (2020)

Selected Resources

  • Gale's Contemporary Authors Online, 2002

Selected Links