Amy & Isabelle

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mfawriting: Elizabeth Strout Interview

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Elizabeth Strout discusses Olive Kitteridge, Amy & Isabelle, and Abide with Me, as well as how she got started and narrative voice. Interviewed by Magdalene Brandeis, faculty coordinator at Stony Brook Manhattan.

A story is only going to become a story when it finds its shape. And voice. For me, it can't be planned.

—Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout Interview
Interview by Magdalene Brandeis
mfawriting: Stony Brook Southampton MFA Program in Writing and Literature YouTube channel
January 18, 2011
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Honorary Degree from Bates College

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On May 30, Elizabeth was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters Degree from her alma mater, Bates College, at the college’s 144th commencement ceremony.  

From the President’s Conferral:

Elizabeth Strout, your eye for the telling detail, your feel for the undercurrents of human relationships, and your ability to shape words into worlds that live vividly on the page have made you one of the outstanding novelists of our time. Therefore, by the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees, I hereby confer upon you the degree Doctor of Letters, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities which here and everywhere pertain to this degree.

Read the full Citation and President’s Conferral ▸

A video of Elizabeth's remarks:

"The best part of what waits for you is that liberating prize of life, those remarkable moments when we understand that we are not the most important person in the world. The man on the side of the road is. The person on the airplane suffering is."

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