Novels source for Hollywood movies

ANITA Shreve, a bestselling novelist, explored how women responded to crises past and present in her native New England in favourites such as

The Pilot’s Wife, Testimony and

The Weight of Water.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced her death, on March 22, at the age of 71. She had been battling cancer and died at her home in New Hampshire.

Shreve had announced her illness last year on Facebook, writing that a ‘‘medical emergency’’ would prevent her from touring for what became her last novel, The Stars Are Fire.

Knopf editor Jordan Pavlin said in a statement Shreve’s ‘‘writing has touched the lives of millions of readers around the world, and she did some of her most elegant, rich, and unforgettable work in the last years of her life’’.

Fellow writers, from Jodi Picoult to Terry McMillan, also offered tributes.

Sue Monk Kidd tweeted that Shreve was ‘‘an amazing writer who offered unparalleled generosity to other writers, including me’’.

Shreve’s novels sold millions of copies, especially after Oprah Winfrey chose The

Pilot’s Wife for her book club in 1999.

Shreve was also a favourite source for Hollywood. The Pilot’s Wife, Resistance and The Weight of Water all were adapted into movies.

Her literary honours included an O. Henry Prize for the story Past the Island, Drifting and being a finalist for England’s Orange Prize for The Weight of Water. Shreve wrote 19 novels in all, and preferred to work in longhand.

‘‘The creative impulse, the thing that gets deep inside me, goes from the brain to the fingertips,’’ she told The Writer magazine.

‘‘When you’re writing by hand, even when you’re not consciously thinking about it, you’re constructing sentences in the best way possible. And I still get the thrill of the clean pad of notepaper and the pencil all sharpened.’’

Born in Dedham, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Tufts University, she began writing fiction while a high school teacher in Reading, Massachusetts, and worked for a time as a journalist in Kenya.

Shreve was married twice, mostly recently to John Osborn, and had two daughters.