Writing for her 'ideal reader'

 

“I don't think there was aparticular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted towrite.” – Elizabeth Strout

 

Born on Jan. 6, 1956 Strout won thePulitzer Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Olive Kitteridge – also a great HBO mini-series. 

 

Of course that’s not all this giftedNew Englander has produced since she had her first short story published in1982.   Strout grew up in New Hampshireand Maine where her father was a science professor, and her mother – who shesaid was a great inspiration for her writing – taught high school. 

 

I feel an affinity for Strout notonly for the “growing up in a small town” connection, but also her slow andsteady writing style producing 9 novels in 30 years (my pace and number).  Her latest is 2022's Lucy By The Sea, the fourth in her "Lucy Barton" series. 

 

Strout has spent most of her writing years in New York City, although she and husband James Tierney split their timebetween there and Maine, where he is the former Attorney General.  Her short stories and nonfiction pieces havebeen published in everything from literary magazines to Redbook and Seventeen.

  

“I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who'swilling to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who'swilling to do their part,” she said of her award-winning work.  “But then I have to do my part and give thema sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.”

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