Spencer Holst (July 7, 1926 – November 23, 2001) was an American writer and storyteller. Although he published several collections of stories and volumes of translations, Holst was known primarily for the captivating live performances of his work that he regularly conducted, particularly in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

area, in a distinctive mellifluous, rhythmically cadenced voice. In his heyday he was often heard on New York's listener-sponsored radio station,

WBAI WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic music. ...

. For many years until his death, he lived at Westbeth Artists Housing in NYC. In addition to presenting readings there, he exhibited his watercolour paintings, many based on invented calligraphic motifs. The paintings were often shown with lengthy titles attached, some were small stories in themselves. The typical Holst story might be a gentle but a twisted fable, such as the tale of a frog who, having become addicted to morphine during a laboratory experiment, was rejected by the woman whose kiss transformed him back into a prince because, after all, he was only a junkie. Holst also wrote a number of paragraph-length prose pieces, which distilled a brief scene or anecdote into a glimmering, evanescent

koan A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen. Etymology The Japanese term is the Sino-J ...

Selected works

*''Thirteen Essays / Sixty Drawings'' (1960)

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by Spencer Holst and drawings by Beatte Wheeler *''On Demons'' (chapbook) (1970) *''The Language of Cats and Other Stories'' (1971) *''Spencer Holst Stories'' (1976) Winner of the Rosenthal Literary Award by the American Academy of Arts & Letters *''Something to Read to Someone/16 Drawings'' (with Beate Wheeler) (1980) *''The Zebra Storyteller'' (1993) *''Brilliant Silence'' (2000)

References

External links

Spencer Holst archive at University of Texas, El Paso

''Searching for Spencer Holst'' by Wendy Freedman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holst, Spencer 20th-century American painters American male painters American performance artists 20th-century American short story writers American storytellers Radio personalities from New York City 1926 births 2001 deaths Painters from New York City 20th-century American male artists