Scott Spencer is the author of eight novels, including Endless Love, which has sold more than 2 million copies and was a National Book Award nominee, as was his novel A Ship Made of Paper. He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and Williams College, and he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004. Excerpted here, Spencer’s ninth novel, Willing, is due out in March 2008 from Ecco Press. Spencer lives in upstate New York.