Literary powerhouse Elizabeth Strout presented a reading and conversation to the Butler community on November 9th as part of the Spirit and Place festival. Her selections from Lucy Barton focused on place and home. She followed the reading with a discussion about her home, Maine. She emphasized the importance of writing and reading books. “Books teach you again what you honestly feel,” she said. “Without books, you lose empathy.” Her openness and grace were felt throughout the room. Some waited over an hour to meet and thank her; Strout was warm and unrushed to the last person.
The following day, Strout met with students for an intimate Q & A. She discussed her writing process and where she found inspiration. “I grew up on a dirt road in Maine with all my great-aunts. They were miserable, elderly people. I went in and out of their homes like a squirrel—they didn’t care. Their voices and concerns were the music of my childhood.”
While sometimes lightheartedly joking about eating a donut every day while finishing Olive Kitteridge, Strout answered students questions on writing process and technique. When asked her thoughts on the election, she said, “Olive Kitteridge would’ve had a visceral response and put it all out there.” This echoed her message the previous night: “It is a writer’s job to delve into the feelings we wish we didn’t have, truthfully.”