“The two characters that I have written who are older are Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton. It’s interesting because as I wrote them it was their character that was most important to me, and their age was simply a piece of that character. So even though I knew I was writing about older people I didn’t think about that in a way, except to make sure they were always who they were.”
On Writing Olive Kitteridge
“I am always interested in the fact that in small communities people believe they know each other, and yet they know only a sliver of that person. It fascinates me to think of the point of view of every person being different.”
Waterstones bookshops in the UK has selected Olive Kitteridge as their Fiction Book of the Month for August. They invited me to write a little something on writing Olive Kitteridge for their blog. So there it is!
HBO’s Olive Kitteridge wins six Emmy Awards
“In addition to being named as the best limited series or movie, the series’s director Lisa Cholodenko, lead actress Frances McDormand and supporting actor Bill Murray, all walked away with awards.”
Congratulations to Frances McDormand and the other Emmy winners on HBO’s Olive Kitteridge! So well deserved. Very, very happy for them all!
The Diane Rehm Show: Readers’ Review: “Olive Kitteridge” (rebroadcast)
Honored to be back (in absentia) on The Diane Rehm Show! A discussion of Olive Kitteridge.
“Author Elizabeth Strout describes Olive as “ferocious and complicated and kindly and sometimes cruel. In essence … a little bit of each of us.” Today the book has gained renewed attention with a recent HBO miniseries adaptation, starring Frances McDormand. For this Readers’ Review: we listen back to our discussion of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Olive Kitteridge.”
HBO: Interview With Elizabeth Strout
"I had to just let her be Olive." Behind the scenes and stories, on the making of Olive Kitteridge.
“HBO: What inspired you to write ‘Olive Kitteridge’?
Elizabeth Strout: I wrote the first ‘Olive’ story many years ago — 15 or 16 years ago, I believe. It was the story where she steals her daughter-in-law’s shoe....”