Candace Spigelman (1947-2004)
I am still in a bit of shock. I was doing a random search on something, and came across an announcement that Candace Spigelman died on December 17 from complications that arose during surgery to remove benign brain tumors. She was a professor at Penn State Berks-Lehigh Valley College. There is an announcement on the International Writing Centers Association site and a really nice memorial with lots of student quotations on Penn State's site. An official obituary is here. Apparently, the emails announcing her death came right when we were going to Texas, the ones from listservs I deleted wholesale without reading when I found a computer in a hotel.

I learned so much from my interactions with her. She submitted an essay that we included in our collection on writing groups that was perfect from the start. We included it in our book proposal packet because it was so strong. That was in 1999. In 2000, I met her at the CCCC in Minneapolis. We sat and chatted for a bit. I remember feeling paranoid because she was an established professor, and I was a lowly graduate student. I was supposed to be her editor? But she didn't do anything to make me feel that way. I always liked emailing her with a quick question. When the book appeared early last year, she sent an email saying how happy she was.

But the hours I will absolutely treasure most were the ones I spent with her on Friday, May 28, 2004, at the Rhetoric Society of America conference in Austin. We were on a panel together on ethos. Most who are remembering her write about her work on authorship and on writing centers, but I loved her work on personal writing. I cited it in my dissertation and in my job talks. I talked about her as a primary scholar in my research. At RSA, I loved that I had the chance to be on a panel with her about ethos and personal writing.

I didn't really want to go to the conference, however, when the time came. We had just returned from London and Da Man felt like crap after the long flights. I hated leaving him. And another friend had pulled out of the panel, so it already felt different than I had expected. But I had an obligation and I did want to spend some time with Candace.

Our panel was later in the afternoon, but we met in the hotel lobby early in the day. It was a great lobby for chatting, and we spent an hour doing that. Then we had a long lunch. Those hours made the whole trip for me. Basically, we talked about developing an academic career. She gave me so much advice. We talked about my projects. She told me about her own struggles with writing. She gave me details about how people and editors had responded to her work and what she thought about it and how she handled it. She was so encouraging. She offered to read the essay on which I'm working now, an essay that will be weaker because I no longer have that opportunity. But it's an essay I need to finish for many reasons including the fact that she believed in it.

She went up to her room to prepare for our panel. We met back in the conference room, and we had such a great time delivering our talks. We had a good turnout and a really lively discussion afterwards. We said goodbye after that because she was planning to fly home the following day (it was Memorial Day weekend, another reason we both wanted to be home).

I had absolutely no idea that she was even going in for surgery. Just a few days ago, I'd told Da Man, when I was talking about this essay I'm revising now, I said that I was so glad I was able to have such a long talk with her last May. At CCCC, there are so many people that it's difficult to have a long talk with anyone. But this was her first time at RSA, and mine, too. It's a much smaller conference, though people still stopped by us to say hi to her. I honestly treasure that time now more than before.

The rhet/comp community has really lost someone important. She was publishing more and more in recent years, and it was really good stuff. She's the first person in my professional world that I've lost who really had an effect on me personally. I've typed all this out, but I still don't feel like I know what to say.
- posted by Nels @ 9:45 PM | | | Link |