Joyce Carol Oates

Monday, February 16th, 2009
5:00 pm in the Solarium
Indiana Memorial Union

Joyce Carol Oates is one of America's most versatile, serious writers, the writer of a number of distinguished books in several genres, all published within the past twenty-five years. In addition to numerous novels and short story collections, she has published several volumes of poetry, several books of plays, five books of literary criticism, and the book-length essay On Boxing. John Gardner has called her "one of the greatest writers of our time."

Her writing has earned her much praise and many awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in short fiction, the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy - Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the O'Henry Prize for Continued Achievement in the Short Story, the National Book Award for her novel Them, and in 1978, membership in the American Academy-Institute. What I Lived For was nominated for the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award.

Ms. Oates's recent works include the novels My Heart Laid Bare (1998), Broke Heart Blues (1999), The Tattoo Girl (2003), The Gravedigger's Daughter (2007), My Sister, My Love (2008); the short stories High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006 (2006), Wild Nights (2008), and Dear Husband (2009). She is the author of many plays and dramas such as In Darkest America (1991), I Stand Before You Naked (1991), and Dr. Magic (2004), as well as of numerous poetry collections, most recently, The Coming Storm (2009). A very accomplished essayist and critic as well, amongst her non-fiction books one should mention, at least, On Boxing (1987), (Woman) Writer: Occasions and Opportunities (1988), and Uncensored: Views & (Re)views (2005).

Born in upstate New York, Joyce Carol Oates received her B.A. from Syracuse University and her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.