FRONT AND CENTER: Mark Spitzer & Robin Becker

CONWAY — Mark Spitzer went to grad school at Louisiana State University with an attitude. He’d studied in a number of other programs and felt he had something to prove in Baton Rouge.

In a poetry workshop, he worked on a series of poems that attacked his classmates.

“But I saw the teddy bear within,” Robin Becker said.

Becker and Spitzer met at LSU and have been together ever since.

After finishing the Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at LSU, the couple moved to Kirksville, Mo., and got married. Spitzer had a teaching gig at Truman State University.

While Becker was the little girl teaching school to her dolls, Spitzer never thought he’d find himself at the front of a classroom.

“It’s a surprise to me that anybody would let me teach,” Spitzer said.

Becker thinks he’s pretty good at it, though.

When they weren’t in the classroom at Truman State, finding entertainment in the small town was somewhat of a challenge and a definite adjustment for the newlyweds.

“Kirksville is what we like to call rural with an edge,” Becker said. “It’s a town of 15,000 people, and there’s nothing for 20 miles surrounding it. You had to create your own scene.”

The couple put on their own events during their five years in the small town: readings, rock shows and more.

Becker has played in bands since attending school at the University of Texas at Austin.

She’s the guitarist for the Conway Twitties, but without a rhythm section, the band isn’t currently booked for any shows.

Spitzer and Becker moved to Conway in 2007 when Spitzer was offered a tenured position at the University of Central Arkansas.

He teaches poetry and creative nonfiction, while Becker teaches introductory composition and creative writing at UCA.

And of course, they’re both always writing.

“I’m an obsessive writer,” Spitzer said. “For me, it’s more like a neurosis. It’s something I’m programmed to do.”

Both professors are pleased with how much UCA has encouraged them to write.

“It’s a real creative environment at the College of Fine Arts at UCA,” Spitzer said. “There’s a lot going on all the time.”

Spitzer published five books last year — more than he ever has — including his memoir After the Orange Glow, which he’s been reading from at events all over Conway this spring.

“Two of my books out this year are about living a bohemian life in Paris, France. It’s drugs, sex and rock ’n’ roll,” Spitzer said. “In a way, I sort of wrote it for the 20-year-old within myself, so I think they can empathize.”

He’s now working on a series of poems about mythical Arkansas monsters.

“It’s a new style for me,” he said. “[The poems] are full of information, interviews, clippings from newspaper articles, so they’re like a collage of historical chunks.”

After growing frustrated with being unpublished, Becker finally has her first book, Brains: A Zombie Memoir, on the shelves, and she’s working on her next novel, Mind Killer, a supernatural thriller about a young woman who can kill with her mind.

Becker laughed at herself when she explained the plot. Her voice changed, and her gaze shifted.

The couple find the humor in most things they do.

“I laugh at Mark,” Becker said.

“I laugh at myself, too,” Spitzer agreed.

And while the couple do feed off of each other creatively — they are always each other’s first set of eyes on their drafts for stories and poems — they don’t see each other much around campus.

“My classes are in the morning, and Mark’s classes are in the afternoon, so we really don’t see each other much during the day,” Becker explained.

When they’re not at school, the couple enjoy spending time at their home on Lake Conway.

Spitzer is actively involved in several environmental issues, including the quality of the area’s water. He serves as UCA’s representative on the Lake Conway Advocacy Group.

“Water is one of the most important things to me because there are fish in it, and you can put boats on it.”

And those are two things Spitzer loves. He said he spends as much time as possible on Lake Conway in his canoe, and the water has influenced his writing as well.

Spitzer, the author of Season of the Gar: Adventures in Pursuit of America’s Most Misunderstood Fish, is regarded as the foremost “gar expert,” he said.

Recently, he spoke out against Conway Corp.’s plan to build a sewage-treatment facility in the Tupelo Bayou in Conway in the middle of one of the largest alligator-gar spawning areas in the state.

Despite his efforts, the $70 million project will continue as planned.

“You can’t win them all,” Becker told her husband.

And Spitzer will continue to advocate for clean water and safe environmental practices.

“We are so lucky to have clean water here,” he said. “In other places in the world, the water is contaminated and poisoned and dangerous. If we don’t take care of this water, we might as well commit environmental suicide.”

The couple agree that their favorite things about central Arkansas are the flowers and the fish.

“I also like all the quirky little things we have, like Toad Suck Daze and the daffodils up there on Wye Mountain and the Arkansas Literary Fest,” Becker said.

Becker and Spitzer will both read their work today in Little Rock as part of the Arkansas Literary Fest. Spitzer will participate in the Toad Suck Review Editors’ Panel at 1:30 p.m. at the Ottenheimer Theatre as well as the Fistacular at 3 p.m. at the Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature center. Becker will read her work as part of the Zomie/Austen mashup at 3 p.m. at the Ottenheimer Theatre. Because their readings are scheduled for the same time, the couple won’t be able to hear each other read, but Becker said that’s OK.

“We never listen to each other anyway,” she said.

— czilk@arkansasonline.com

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