[2] She wrote a total of nine novels, seven collections of short stories, a memoir (Landscapes of the Heart, 1998), and a play (For Lease or Sale, 1989).

She writes about this as it concerns the inner lives of her female characters, many of whom struggle to establish a fruitful life independent of society's narrow restrictions.

She earned her BA at Belhaven College in Jackson, Mississippi and a master's in literature at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1943.

[citation needed] Her third novel, begun in Florence, Italy, The Voice at the Back Door, was the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1957.

[5] After her first three novels set in Mississippi, Spencer's career foundered for a while, for she was seen as a "Southern woman" writer, and not a literary figure.