Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates is one of America's most versatile, serious writers, the author 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 2005 Prix Femina, France’s literary prize for the best novel published in their country, 2004 Fairfax Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts, 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. In 1999 she was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the third time.

Often Oates's "vision" is that of a highly complex America populated with presumably ordinary families who experience common yet intense emotions and relationships and who frequently encounter violence. Her ambition is to create a fictional world that mirrors the ambiguity and felt experience of the real world of her time.

On the occasion of the publication of You Must Remember This, critic James Atlas called it "an American Masterpiece." Also said of Oates's writing in general: "The engine of Oates's immense talent is powered by a fecund imagination and an immense knowledge of literature, as all her writing – both fiction and nonfiction -- made plain."

Her newest novel, Tales of H. P. Lovecraft (HarperCollins) was published in September 2007, as well as The Gravedigger’s Daughter (Harper Collins) May 2007 and The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 (Ecco Press). In 2006 three works were published: Black Girl/White Girl; High Lonesome: Selected Stories, 1966-2006, and The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense (Harcount).

Wild Nights! Stories about the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway (Ecco Press) is expected in 2008.

Uncensored: Views (Re)views (HarperCollins 2005) is Joyce Carol Oates's most candid gathering of prose pieces since (Woman) Writer: Occasions Opportunities. Her ninth book of nonfiction, it brings together thirty-eight diverse and provocative pieces of literary criticism from the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the New York Times Book Review.

Additional works include: Missing Mom (Ecco 2005); The Stolen Heart (Ecco 2005); Uncensored: Views (Re)Views (Ecco 2005); Sexy (HarperTempest, February 2005); The Falls, a novel (HarperCollins, September 2004); Freaky Green Eyes (young adult novel, HarperCollins September 2003); Take Me, Take Me With You (Ecco Press) 2004; I Am No One You Know, (Ecco Press) 2004, nineteen startling stories that bear witness to the remarkably varied lives of Americans of our time, they testify to Oates’s compassion for the mysterious and luminous resources of the human spirit; Rape: A Love Story (Carroll & Graf) 2003; Faith of a Writer (HarperCollins) 2003, a book of essays about the art/craft of writing; The Tattooed Girl (HarperCollins)2003, a novel; Small Avalanches and Other Stories (HarperCollins) 2003, a collection of short stories; A Garden of Earthly Delights, first published in 1967 and received a National Book Award nomination, now released in a new hardcover edition (Modern Library) 2003, this work is based on Oates' own family history; I'll Take You There (HarperCollins) October 2002; Big Mouth & Ugly Girl, her first novel for young adults (HarperCollins) May 2002; Beasts (Carroll & Graf) January 2002; Middle Age: A Romance (The Ecco Press/HarperCollins) 2001; Faithless: Tales of Transgression (The Ecco Press) March 2001, a short story collection; Blonde (The Ecco Press) 2000; Broke Heart Blues (Dutton) 1999; Gemini: An American Epic (HarperCollins) 1999; My Heart Laid Bare (Dutton); The Collector of Hearts (Dutton), Gothic short stories; and New Plays (Ontario Review Press), all in 1998; Man Crazy (Dutton) 1997; Double Delight (Dutton) 1997; We Were The Mulvaneys  (Dutton) 1996; Tenderness (Ontario Review) 1996; Will You Always Love Me? And Other Short Stories by Joyce Carol Oates (1996); First Love, (The Ecco Press) 1996, a novella; and Zombie, a bold and thrilling exploration into the life and mind of a serial killer (1995).

Her newest children’s book, Naughty Cherie, was published in January 2008. Come Meet Muffin! (The Ecco Press), a children's book, was published in 1998.

Black Water was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

In January 2001 We Were The Mulvaneys was selected as an Oprah Book of the Month.

Joyce Carol Oates is also a playwright whose plays have been performed widely in the United States and abroad. She has been involved with student productions and readings of her plays at Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, Williams College, Brown University, and the Los Angeles Theatre Academy. Along with meeting with creative writing students, she has also met with theater students. Her plays have been collected in TWELVE PLAYS, THE PERFECTIONIST AND OTHER PLAYS, and NEW PLAYS (1998). In spring 1999 her full-length play THE PASSION OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU was produced by the Northwestern University Drama School. She also wrote the libretto for an opera made of her novel BLACK WATER, most recently performed at L.A. Theater Works.

Recent works of poetry include The Time Traveller (Dutton) and The Invisible Woman (Ontario Review).

The Best American Essays of the Century (Houghton Mifflin) 2000, is edited by Joyce Carol Oates. "Here is the history of America told in many voices" she writes in her introduction of this collection of 55 essays by American writers.

Born in upstate New York in 1938, Joyce Carol Oates received her B.A. from Syracuse University in 1960 and her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1961. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University.

For a comprehensive review of all of the works by Joyce Carol Oates in addition to photographs visit her official website at http://jco.usfca.edu/index.html

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