Celeste Dupuy Spencer (1979–2026) was a Los Angeles–based American painter known for expressive, layered figurative works that interrogate power, religion, privilege, and community. A Bard alumna, her work—featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. and major collections—blends intimacy and existential urgency.Nina MacLaughlin is the award-winning author of Wake Siren: Ovid Resung, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award; the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a finalist for the New England Book Award; as well as Summer Solstice and the bestselling Winter Solstice, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and then as a books columnist for the Boston Globe, and her column on New England Literary News continues in newsletter form. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, n+1, AGNI, The Believer, The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times Book Review, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Celeste Dupuy Spencer (1979–2026) was a Los Angeles–based American painter known for expressive, layered figurative works that interrogate power, religion, privilege, and community. A Bard alumna, her work—featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. and major collections—blends intimacy and existential urgency.Nina MacLaughlin is the award-winning author of Wake Siren: Ovid Resung, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award; the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a finalist for the New England Book Award; as well as Summer Solstice and the bestselling Winter Solstice, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and then as a books columnist for the Boston Globe, and her column on New England Literary News continues in newsletter form. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, n+1, AGNI, The Believer, The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times Book Review, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Celeste Dupuy Spencer (1979–2026) was a Los Angeles–based American painter known for expressive, layered figurative works that interrogate power, religion, privilege, and community. A Bard alumna, her work—featured in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. and major collections—blends intimacy and existential urgency.Nina MacLaughlin is the award-winning author of Wake Siren: Ovid Resung, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award; the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a finalist for the New England Book Award; as well as Summer Solstice and the bestselling Winter Solstice, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and then as a books columnist for the Boston Globe, and her column on New England Literary News continues in newsletter form. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, n+1, AGNI, The Believer, The Paris Review Daily, The New York Times Book Review, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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