click pix for bio, stories below

THE ZEBRA STORYTELLER

ON HOPE

The Santa Clause Murderer

The Man Who Was Always
Wishing

The Language of Cats

The Mirror Story

 

SPENCER HOLST is a legendary underground storyteller with tales as a cross between Hans Christian Andersen and Franz Kafka. His work has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. Holst won the Hilda and Richard Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1977 for his book "Spencer Holst Stories."

Holst's stories have been repeated by word of mouth and his followers in the thousands all over the country. He has published two collections of stories,  THE LANGUAGE OF CATS  and  SPENCER HOLST STORIES , and for three decades has been storyteller par excellence of New York's literary cafés, entrancing readers from Allen Ginsberg to John Cage to Muriel Rukeyser and W. S. Merwin. He reads his stories in New York City at St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bouwerie, Judson Church in Washington Square, and at St' Peter's Church in Chelsea. Each weekend he conducts a notable double series of readings at Doctor Generosity's on the Upper East Side and at St. Adrian Company in Greenwich Village. The author's readings in Greenwich Village have been attended by Allen Ginsberg, John Cage, W.S. Merwin, Diane Walotsky, Raymond Mongo...

Born in 1926, Holst left Ohio for New York to become a writer. Mr. Holst died November 23, 2001 of a stroke. He was 75 and lived in New York City with his wife, the visual artist Beate Wheeler.
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Most ofthese we typed in. The exceptions are the SantaClaus Murderer and A Following which we found at http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~grin/Holst/stories.html after we first uploaded.

 

additional bibliography:

HOLST, SPENCER
* *

I Thought You Were Writing, (vi) Stories, New York: Horizon Press, 1976

The Zebra Story Teller and Other Stories

The Language of Cats and Other Stories, Dutton, 1971

Mona Lisa Meets Buddha, *hereMona Lisa meets Bhuddahere*

The Institute of the Foul Ball

Lachmann, Vera. Golden tanzt das Licht im Glas. Golden Dances the Light in the Glass (English prose versions by Spencer Holst). Amsterdam: Castrum Peregrini, 1969.