James Toback’s documentary: Tyson
Joyce Carol Oates attended a screening of James Toback’s documentary Tyson with the director and Iron Mike himself, and participated in a Q & A session, as reported in New […]
Sylvia Plath’s Legacy
With the recent death by hanging of Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia Plath, the New York Times asks “Why the Plath Legacy Lives”? Joyce Carol Oates notes, The suicide of […]
Fifty Years
When she was a junior at Syracuse University, JCO entered her short story “In the Old World” in the Mademoiselle College Fiction Competition. The story was selected as co-winner of the competition (two winners each year) and was published in the August 1959 issue.
JCO Miscellany: Four
A Hollywood film based on Joyce Carol Oates’s novella Rape: A Love Story is scheduled to begin shooting in June. The film will star Samuel L. Jackson, Maria Bello, and […]
Wild Nights at McCarter!
Princeton’s McCarter Theatre presented readings yesterday of two new one-act plays by Joyce Carol Oates: Wild Nights, about a couple who purchase an android Emily Dickinson to liven up their […]
JCO on Hortense Calisher
The recent passing of Hortense Calisher prompted me to review Joyce Carol Oates’s writings about her. There were mentions in the Journal, and in an essay, “Imaginary Cities: America,” as well as book reviews of Calisher’s The New Yorkers and Mysteries of Motion. Of the latter, JCO writes: This massive, densely plotted novel of the not-very- distant future is Miss […]
JCO on the Fringe
Two Joyce Carol Oates-related events will be presented at The New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) in August: The first is a play based on JCO’s novel Zombie. The play is adapted and performed by Bill Connington, who notes that “by the end of the play … you might feel some empathy for a man who has done horrible things. […]
JCO Miscellany: Three
John Ranard We note the death of social-documentary photographer John Ranard last month, best known to Joyce Carol Oates fans for his work included in her book On Boxing. Quoted […]
Of Seas Crimson and Tranquil
The current banner image for this blog and for Celestial Timepiece is taken from HubbleSite, run for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute. STScI titles the image “Cone Nebula […]
JCO Officially “Weird”
For its 85th anniversary issue, Weird Tales magazine has compiled a list of The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years. Of Joyce Carol Oates, they note that she is “arguably the darkest and weirdest writer to be fully embraced by the mainstream since Poe himself….”
JCO Miscellany: One
What is the worst thing that can happen? Lisa, from the long-running TV show The Simpsons, imagines herself in prison on the March 23, 2008 episode. The guard arrives with […]
Ontario Review Retires after 34 Years
With the passing of its editor, Raymond J. Smith, Ontario Review itself will cease publication with the forthcoming Spring 2008 issue. Smith began Ontario Review in 1974 in Windsor, Ontario, with his wife Joyce Carol Oates as associate editor; the Review later moved with its editors to Princeton, NJ.
Raymond J. Smith: Rest in Peace
I have learned, with great sadness, of the death of Raymond J. Smith, who was for more than 30 years editor of Ontario Review, as well as Ontario Review Press; […]
50 Years Ago …
Fifty years ago (1958), Joyce Carol Oates published the short story “Rapport” in Syracuse 10, the undergraduate literary magazine at Syracuse University where she was majoring in English. The year […]
JCO in Pushcart Prize
Joyce Carol Oates’s short story, “Nowhere,” originally published in Conjunctions, is included in the 2008 edition of The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. This is JCO’s twelfth piece in the prize anthology.
Celestial Timepiece 