“My
theory is that literature is essential to society in the way that dreams are
essential to our lives. We can't live without dreaming - as we can't live
without sleep. We are 'conscious' beings for only a limited period of time,
then we sink back into sleep - the 'unconscious.' It is nourishing, in ways we
can't fully understand.” – Joyce Carol Oates
Oates, born in Lockport, NY on June 16, 1938, said she loves the
process of writing - she writes in longhand - and she does so almost every day. The product of a
one-room country school (something I share with her) she had her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, published by Vanguard Press in 1963.
That novel’s success opened her writing floodgates resulting in the publication of some 60 novels, a number of plays and
novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. For
those efforts she’s won numerous awards, including a National Book Award for Them.
A terrific writer in all genres, she’s also won
two O. Henry Awards and the National Humanities Medal. Three of her novels – Black Water, What I Lived For,
and Blonde – along with two of her short
story collections have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Joyce Carol
Oates
“I
have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted," she said, "when I've
felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing
changes everything.”
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