Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oatesis an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over 40 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth16 June 1938
CityLockport, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Joyce Carol Oates quotes about
A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but that doesn't stop you feeling it.
Among many of my friends and acquaintances, I seem to be one of the very few individuals who felt or feels no ambivalence about my mother. All my feelings for my mother were positive, very strong and abiding.
She examined me, she looked at me critically and said, "Why are you trying to starve yourself?" To keep myself from feeling love, from feeling lust, from feeling anything at all.
I'm sure all that you've heard is just the usual gossip, invented to injure feelings rather than illuminate truth.
After love a formal feeling comes.
I should say, one of the things about being a widow or a widower, you really, really need a sense of humor, because everything's going to fall apart.
Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is the most haunting of her life, though it is one-sided and ends in tragedy.
Where we come from in America no longer signifies. It's where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are.
I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.
In 'We Were the Mulvaneys,' animals are almost as important as people. I wanted to show the tenderness in our relationships with cats, dogs, and horses. Especially cats.
Dust jackets are always something of an enigma to me.
Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know one another?
The most common misperception about me is that I write fast. I just write often. Every hour that I can.
A writer can't subtract or excise any of his/her past because doing so would erase the work produced during that time.