Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist Advises Students to Listen – and Persevere

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist Advises Students to Listen – and Persevere Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout spoke on campus in conversation with author and English Prof. Andre Dubus III. Elizabeth Strout , Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton books, doesn’t waste words. Yet, everything she said in a campus conversation with author and English Prof. Andre Dubus III spoke volumes to the writing students in attendance, many of whom had submitted questions in advance. Her advice: Listen to ordinary people, think of your reader and persevere in your writing. “I’m just so interested in ordinary people – but they’re not ordinary. Nobody’s ordinary,” she told an audience of more than 250 students, faculty, staff and community members. “The stories that people have are extraordinary.” Strout talked about her latest book, in which her most famous characters meet for the first time. That message resonated for Nick Rossi, a senior majoring in digital media and minoring in English who has taken creative writing classes with Dubus and Prof. Maureen Stanton , a creative nonfiction author. “The most valuable thing I took away … was Elizabeth’s comments about how there’s value in ordinary people and ordinary things,” Rossi said. “Everyone has a story, and although we might be considered common, none of us are. We’ve all been through things and have something to share.” Strout’s appearance on Oct. 30 was the latest in the Writers on Campus series organized by the English Department’s creative writing faculty. Stanton said that the events, which often include classroom conversations, give students, “especially our aspiring writers who may be part of the next generation of literary voices, the opportunity to engage with a diverse group of memoirists, poets and fiction writers.” “They speak directly to students about their writing lives and their artistic processes,” Stanton said. “We hear over and over from our students how inspiring these presentations are to them.” Many attendees lined up afterward so that Strout, who won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “Olive Kitteridge” and whose books routinely top the bestseller lists, could sign copies of […]

Click here to view original page at Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist Advises Students to Listen – and Persevere

© 2024, wcadmin. All rights reserved, Writers Critique, LLC Unless otherwise noted, all posts remain copyright of their respective authors.