Nonfiction
If Joyce Carol Oates Ruled the World
“In my kingdom firearms would be rigged so as to fire backward. Even as the avid gun-wielder pulls the trigger he is doing his small part in eradicating a global […]
“In my kingdom firearms would be rigged so as to fire backward. Even as the avid gun-wielder pulls the trigger he is doing his small part in eradicating a global problem.”
Life is simple in Joyce Carol Oates’s kingdom, as explained in her essay “If I ruled the world” in the October 2015 issue of Prospect Magazine. “We would worship chickens. Not God.”
“Hens, badly mistreated in our world, would be treated with enormous respect and reverence of the kind accorded ‘sacred cows’ in India; the widely varying breeds of hens (and their eggs) would be championed as sports teams are now, with devout fans attired in appropriate clothing.”
“Nobel prizes would be awarded for the most astonishing acts of endurance, courage, and ingenuity in animal species. Butterflies, birds, fish that migrate extraordinary distances under the most arduous conditions would be honoured.”
Read the full essay at Prospect Magazine. Trigger warning: examples of human folly are described.
Randy Souther
I'm a Reference Librarian at the University of San Francisco's Gleeson Library, and I run the Joyce Carol Oates web site, Celestial Timepiece.
Celestial Timepiece 
hi, my name is “Charlie Oates” …we are not from the same OATES TREE
howheffer, (holy cow) i due/do enjoy your work. Thanks, Signed; Charlie Oates.
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