Elizabeth Strout's Blog, page 4

LitHub: Cover Reveal: Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea.

I’m delighted to share the cover of my forthcoming book, Lucy by the Sea! It was designed by Anna Kochman and Greg Mollica, with art by Jeremy Miranda.

As I told LitHub, I think it’s gorgeous and captures the fear and the exhilaration of all that happens in this book.

Lucy by the Sea will be on sale from Random House on September 20th, 2022. You can preorder it now.

“Exclusive cover reveal: Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy by the Sea,” LitHub, March 22, 2022.

FT Magazine: Elizabeth Strout on Judith Joy Ross’s ‘breathtaking’ photography

“What a thing! To see with our own eyes into the honest self of another!”

Elizabeth Strout, “Elizabeth Strout on Judith Joy Ross’s ‘breathtaking’ photography,” FT Magazine, March 11, 2022.

A Conversation with Elena Ferrante

The author of the Neapolitan quartet and the Pulitzer prize-winning novelist discuss identity, ambition, truth – and the ‘convulsive’ urge to write.

“Here is what I believe: it is the pressure between the lines of the text, and the pressure rising up from under the text, and the pressure that is running above the text, that gives the writing its meaning, it is the unwritten sitting right next to the written, which makes something go beyond the explanation of the team of experts. And this is what happens when you go outside the margins (if I understand you correctly) and it is this which is mysterious, that we aim for.”

— Elizabeth Strout

“No matter how love for others and language as an act of love try continuously, insistently, desperately to get outside the margins of the suffocating first-person singular, we remain bodies organically enclosed in our isolation. Once I recognised this, I was convinced that the other can be truthfully described only through an “I” that is colliding and in the collision unravels.”

— Elena FerranteElena Ferrante and Elizabeth Strout, “‘I felt different as a child. I was nearly mute’: Elena Ferrante in conversation with Elizabeth Strout,” The Guardian, March 5, 2022.

Joining the American Academy of Arts and Letters

I am honored to have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Congratulations to the other new and honorary members!

The induction ceremony will be held on May 18, 2022.

LitHub: Jane Ciabattari Talks to the Author of Oh William!

“Reading Oh William! is a joy, a settling back into a beloved connection, hearing how her life has gone, what she’s up to now. But before we move on to Lucy, our conversation begins with the question of what’s going on now with her author.”

— Jane Ciabattari, LitHubJane Ciabattari, “Elizabeth Strout on Inhabiting Her Characters and Writing Directly,” LitHub, November 2, 2021.

B&N's Poured Over Podcast: Elizabeth Strout on Oh William!

“No one captures the nuances of complicated lives quite like Elizabeth Strout, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author who likes to return to her characters and their communities in sometimes surprising ways, as she does in her new novel, Oh William!. Elizabeth joins us on the show to talk about the world of Lucy Barton and her first husband William, writing with her readers in mind and reading with an open heart.”

Miwa Messer, “Poured Over: Elizabeth Strout on Oh, William!,” B&N's Poured Over (podcast), October 19, 2021.

NY Times: Elizabeth Strout Gets Meta in Her New Novel About Marriage

“Strout works in the realm of everyday speech, conjuring repetitions, gaps and awkwardness with plain language and forthright diction, yet at the same time unleashing a tidal urgency that seems to come out of nowhere even as it operates in plain sight. ”

— Jennifer Egan. New York Times.

Jennifer Egan, “Elizabeth Strout Gets Meta in Her New Novel About Marriage,” New York Times, October 18, 2021.

WSJ: Novelist Elizabeth Strout Never Judges Her Characters

“‘What has motivated me for so many years to be a writer is the question: What does it feel like to be a different person?’
Like Ms. Strout’s other novels, Oh William! is primarily about how hard it is ever to know anyone, including ourselves. ‘Who we are is always mirrored back to us from different people, so our sense of self is always a little nebulous,’ she says.”

Emily Bobrow, “Novelist Elizabeth Strout Never Judges Her Characters,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2021.

TIME: Elizabeth Strout Knows We Can’t Escape the Past

“As with Strout’s previous works of fiction, Oh William! tackles big questions about love, loss and the meaning of humanity through the ordinary moments that comprise everyday living and growing older. TIME spoke to the author about the novel, common marital follies and trying to escape the past.”

Annabel Gutterman, “Elizabeth Strout Knows We Can’t Escape the Past,” TIME, October 13, 2021.

Book Tour for OH WILLLIAM!

Amazingly enough, I am going on tour to talk about my new book Oh William!

I'm excited to meet and talk with readers and other authors. It has been so long! Please come out and ask me all your questions.