Librarian Nancy Pearl sits down with Elizabeth Strout to talk about writing and reading in the latest episode of herr Book Lust author interview show for the local Seattle channel.

Strout, whose newest book is My Name Is Lucy Barton (Random House; Random House Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample), says that writing for her is a long and messy process.

She begins by sketching out pieces of scenes, by hand, on paper, and moves them around on her desk until some shape starts to form.

She always searches for the voice of the character, never writes from beginning to end, and focuses on characterization always.

In fact, she says that, for her,  everything starts and ends with character, and that even a description of a setting makes her think about how a character would respond to seeing it.

Pearl and Strout end the conversation with a lovefest about Stewart O’Nan and his books they have both treasured, including West of Sunset (PRH/Viking, 2015) and Emily, Alone (PRH/Viking, 2011).

Of Strout’s books, Pearl urged readers especially to pick up Amy and Isabelle (Random House, 1998) as well as Olive Kitteridge (Random House, 2008).

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2016 at 1:31 pm and is filed under 2015/16 -- Winter/Spring, Fiction, Literary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.