Sandra Scofield:

An Inventory of Her Papers, 1958-2005 and undated, at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library

Biographical Sketch

Sandra Scofield was born to Edith Aileen Hambleton in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1943. Her mother later married Dean Hupp, with whom she had a second daughter, Karen, who lives in Connecticut. As a child, Scofield lived primarily in Wichita Falls, with a brief stay in Ohio near the Hupp family. The family moved to Odessa in 1955, and Scofield remained in Wichita Falls, living with the sisters at the Academy of Mary Immaculate for seventh and eighth grades. The next two years she spent at Our Lady of Victory Academy in Ft. Worth. She graduated from Odessa High School in 1960 and studied at Odessa Junior College and the University of Texas. She left UT in 1963, all work for a B.A. in Speech completed except for one course, and spent the year in New York City and Mexico; the following summer she completed her degree. Scofield attended Northern Illinois University (1967-68), studying theatre, but did not complete a thesis. She spent a year at Cornell University on an acting fellowship in 1968-69. At the University of Oregon she received an M.A. (1977) and Ph.D. (1979), focusing on reading and language education. Scofield traveled in Europe and extensively in Mexico in the early sixties. She lived in California and Oregon with her first husband, Allen Scofield, an Oregon native and Vietnam veteran (Coast Guard). Their first child, a son, was born in 1971, and died as an infant. Their second child, Jessica, was born in 1973. The Scofields were amicably divorced in 1974. Scofield, who had been working in educational research, went to Montana to assist the state Office of Public Instruction with a special project. In July 1975 she married Bill Ferguson, of Helena, Montana, the state English Supervisor. In November of that year, Allen Scofield died following a car accident. Ferguson adopted Jessica Scofield, who is now an artist, and the family moved to Eugene,Oregon and subsequently to Ashland. After Ferguson's retirement from teaching high school English, the family returned to his home state, Montana, and settled in Missoula. Scofield has remained close to her aunt, Mae Perkins of Lubbock, and so has visited Lubbock numerous times for over thirty years. Scofield taught in public schools and colleges, but stopped working in 1983 to write full time. Her first novel was Gringa, based on her observations and experiences in 1960's Mexico. Since then she has published six more novels and a memoir, in addition to numerous book reviews, scholarly publications, and short stories. She occasionally teaches writing in summer workshops, visits MFA programs, has mentored individual writers, and has written a book for writers, The Scene Book to be published by Penguin in 2007. She is currently (2006-07) organizing letters written to her close friend Mary Economidy in the 1960s, and completing writing projects. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1991); Beyond Deserving was a 1991 finalist for a National Book Award; and A Chance to See Egypt received the Best Fiction award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 1997.

A list of her publications includes:

• Scofield, Sandra. Gringa. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 1989.
• Scofield, Sandra. Beyond Deserving. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 1991.
• Scofield, Sandra. Walking Dunes. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 1992.
• Scofield, Sandra. More Than Allies. Sag Harbor, NY: Permanent Press, 1993.
• Scofield, Sandra. Opal on Dry Ground. New York: Villard Books, 1994.
• Scofield, Sandra. A Chance to See Egypt. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
• Scofield, Sandra. Plain Seeing. New York: Cliff Street Books, 1997.
• Scofield, Sandra. Occasions of Sin: a Memoir. New York: Norton, 2004.

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Scope and Contents

The collection has a variety of materials detailing the literary and scholarly works of Sandra Scofield. They include manuscripts of draft copies, published and unpublished works, short stories, poems, reviews, final copies, revisions, research material, photographs, workshop and conference materials, and academic work and teaching materials. While preparing these papers for shipment, Scofield wrote notes on several boxes and folders and wrote brief histories of each book’s creation and publication. Notes on boxes and folders were photocopied and added to the collection.

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Open for research

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Related Material

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Sandra Scofield Papers, 1958-2005 and undated, Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas

Purchase, 2005

Processed by

Diane Warner and Michelle Roberts, 2006

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Collection Inventory

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