Honorary Degree from Bates College

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."

Read Elizabeth’s commencement speech ▸

WaPo: Fiction Pulitzer Prize Winner Elizabeth Strout Talks Writing, 'Olive Kitteridge'

On the way to writing "Olive Kitteridge," the collection of linked stories that would win her a 2009 Pulitzer Prize, Elizabeth Strout made one of those intuitive leaps that show why the creation of fiction is such a mysterious enterprise.

Fiction Pulitzer Prize Winner Elizabeth Strout Talks Writing, 'Olive Kitteridge'
Bob Thompson
The Washington Post
August 4, 2009

Pulitzer Prize for "Olive Kitteridge"

Elizabeth has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel, Olive Kitteridge.

The citation reads: "For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,"

Awarded to “Olive Kitteridge,” by Elizabeth Strout (Random House), a collection of 13 short stories set in small-town Maine that packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating.

Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presents the 2009 Fiction prize to Elizabeth Strout.

NPR: Who Says You Have To Like A Character?

Here's how real the characters are to me: While I was working on this essay, I caught myself withholding information about the characters to protect their privacy.

Who Says You Have To Like A Character?
Melissa Bank
NPR, You Must Read This
December 08, 2008