Early life
Maja Spencer (pronounced: Maya Spencer, Serbian spelling: Maja Spenser), author, singer and songwriter, was born in 1983 in Serbia, Southeastern Europe. She graduated from the University of Political Sciences, Department of International Relations (Belgrade) in 2005.
As a student, Spencer was interested in the fields of security, propaganda and manipulation. After years of studying psychology, sociology and psychopathology, she started writing books.
Work
Spencer’s first book is a non-fiction book “Needless Thinking about Needs”, (Serbian:”Nepotrebna razmisljanja o potrebama”) published in 2012. Her second non-fiction book is “Humanoid” (published in 2014). The third book, “Something is Wrong” (2015) is a fiction book, written in English.
In 2012, “Needless Thinking about Needs” received a lot of attention in the Balkans.
In her work, Spencer conducts profound research and observes things from various angles (“I simply like to question everything.”) Her writing is concise, focused on facts (“Misconceptions can lead to serious problems, even tragedies…”; “Once it develops, PTD – “Poor Thinking Disease” – is hard (in most cases impossible) to treat… but it can be prevented.”)
Transition to English
“Some of the first words I learned as a child were English words. Writing in English feels natural to me… it also allows me to reach more people.”, said Spencer.
Music Career
In 2017, Spencer wrote and published several singles, one album and one EP, as follows:
“Indestructible”- EP , 2017, “Try Harder”- single, 2017; “Just A Dream” (single, 2017), “Just A Dream” – album, 2017; “I’m Yours” – single, 2017. The fusion of styles, such as contemporary jazz, jazz, RnB, and Soul, enriched with modern sound, as well as her distinctive vocal, made Spencer’s songs easily recognizable and facilitated her way into the music industry. She has already performed live, and the songs had a good reception and aired on radio stations world wide.
Interesting facts
“In some parts of the world, being a young author can be very hard, even unpleasant at times. When they first saw my work and my promotional photos, they started with “conspiracy theories” (it all started when someone said that I didn’t really exist and that my photos were used just to draw attention to a book written by a group of authors. They called me an “advertising and promotional trick”. Some people still don’t believe I actually exist and write my books). It was a little disappointing to discover that so many people still had a hard time believing that a person could be young, educated, decent-looking, devoted to her work and honest, all at the same time (and being a woman didn’t help. Turns out that if you are a young woman, you will be hated by other women more than you will be judged by men). Some journalists asked me for interviews and wanted to see me in person simply out of curiosity.”
Spencer plays the violin and the piano; she is an Argentine Tango dancer and a free-dancer. She is also good at painting, drawing and design. Her hobbies include shooting firearms and sports.
She loves robotics; her interest in artificial intelligence (more specifically, human-robot interaction) lead to her second book, “Humanoid”.
Her pets are a Maine Coon called “Cat” and an electronic dog called “Mike”.
Her favorite animals are hyena and leopard.
Spencer appears to be an atheist: ( “I believe in honesty, helping others and being good to them, when they deserve it. I have been doing that all my life and I will keep doing it for as long as I live. I help people because I want to, not because some dogma is telling me to do so, or threatening to punish me if I don’t. ;“I am not a member of any political, religious, or any other kind of group or association.”; “I believe in common sense”; “It would be extremely difficult (it is safe to say “impossible”) for me to believe in unverifiable things.”)
When asked what languages she spoke, she said: “It depends on where I am. Most of the time, I speak English. Sometimes I speak Serbian, (and Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin, of course) as well as Spanish, bad Italian and very bad Catalan (those I have to improve). I can also read Russian quite well, but I don’t speak it.”
Source: www.majaspencer.com