Tavis Smiley: JCO’s “The Sacrifice” and Race in America
Tavis Smiley talks with Joyce Carol Oates about her novel The Sacrifice and race in America, introducing her as “one of the best writers America has ever produced.” See the video interview […]
“Building a novel is like building a cathedral”
From the Brian Lehrer Show: Joyce Carol Oates’ Take on Twana Brawley Case
Joyce Carol Oates: By the Book
What book had the greatest impact on you? What book made you want to write? Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” which my grandmother gave me when […]
A Woman’s Work
Deborah Solomon interviews Joyce Carol Oates for the New York Times Magazine: Why do you find violence so alluring as a literary subject? If you’re going to spend the next year of your life writing, you would probably rather write “Moby Dick” than a little household mystery with cat detectives. I consider tragedy the highest form of art. Topics briefly […]
Art For My Sake
The Guardian asks Joyce Carol Oates and others whether writing for a living is a joy or a chore; JCO suggests don’t trust anybody’s answer: Recall that DH Lawrence warned us to trust the tale, not the teller – the teller of fictions is likely to be a liar. Darwinian evolutionary psychology suggests that none of us really knows what […]
Kentucky Welcomes JCO
Cheryl Truman, books editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader, profiles and interviews Joyce Carol Oates in advance of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. Tidbits of interest: Oates didn’t used to be much of a TV watcher but admits immersing herself in tabloid-news TV to research My Sister, My Love: Bill O’Reilly, Geraldo Rivera and Nancy Grace (“I think sometimes she has a moral […]
JCO at Fairfield University
Blogger Elizabeth Howard presents a strangely angry depiction of Joyce Carol Oates’s appearance at Fairfield University on Sunday. The afternoon event is presented as a would-be ambush by Professor “Buttercup,” an “eminent nobody” whose puny attack is casually dismissed by an Olympian JCO. Howard ridicules the presumptuous “man-professor,” academics in general, and any Connecticut resident there who might have a […]
Naughty Chérie is Published
Joyce Carol Oates’s third children’s book, Naughty Chérie, goes on sale today. Illustrated by Mark Graham, all three books involve kitten characters based on real cats who have owned JCO. […]
JCO Remembers Norman Mailer
Janet Coleman, author, actor, and Cat Radio Café host, speaks with Joyce Carol Oates about the life and work of Norman Mailer. “I have to say that as soon as Mailer died, the kinds of remarks made about him in the press I did not think were helpful, or deep enough, or worthy. I thought there was a lot of […]
EW Picks JCO
Jennifer Reese, a director of the National Book Critics Circle, and a critic for Entertainment Weekly, has chosen the 10 Best Fiction Books of 2007, including Joyce Carol Oates’s The Gravedigger’s Daughter at number 7. Reese interviewed JCO earlier this summer about the novel, her grandmother, and her productivity; the interview includes comments from JCO’s editor, Daniel Halpern, and novelist […]
Celestial Timepiece 