Loading details…
Artist
Joyce Carol Oates
12+ albums
spoken wordpoetryauthorpoetwriter
about
Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is a U.S. author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novel them (1969) won the National Book Award, and her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. With a reputation for prolificity, Oates has been one of the leading U.S. novelists since the 1960s. As of 2008, Oates is the Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, where she has taught since 1978. Oates has also written under the pseudonyms "Rosamond Smith" and "Lauren Kelly". Oates was born in Lockport, New York to Rita Oates, a homemaker, and Frederic Oates, a tool and die designer. She was raised Catholic, and is now an atheist. Oates grew up in the working-class farming community of Millersport, New York, and characterized hers as "a happy, close-knit and unextraordinary family for our time, place and economic status". Her paternal grandmother, Blanche Woodside, lived with the family and was "very close" to Joyce. After Blanche's death, Joyce learned that Blanche's father had killed himself and Blanche had subsequently concealed her Jewish heritage; Oates eventually drew on aspects of her grandmother's life in writing the 2007 novel The Gravedigger's Daughter. A brother, Fred Junior, was born in 1943, and a sister, Lynn Ann, wh
you might also explore
▤Books
▦TV
▧Games
