Richard Russo, a resident of Camden won the Pulitzer Prize “for distinguished fiction by an American author,” in 2002 for Empire Falls, about a declining mill town in Maine.
According to an article in the Bangor Daily News, Russo reportedly said “This is a book about class and it happens to be set in Maine. As many people have pointed out, it could have been set in many places. This is a snapshot of Maine but it’s also a snapshot of America at the end of the millennium.”
Russo, a native of Gloversville, New York, moved to Maine in the 1990’s to teach English at Colby College in Waterville. He quit when the success of the film Nobody’s Fool, for which he co-wrote the screenplay, allowed him to pursue writing full time.
He co-wrote the screenplay of another Paul Newman film, Twilight (1988) and his teleplay Flamingo Rising (2000) was produced by the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Additional resources
Bangor Daily News, April 9, 2002
New York State Writers Institute, Writers On-Line Magazine, Fall, 2001.