Joyce Carol Oates was born in Lockport, New York. She grew up on her parents' farm, outside the town, and went to a one-room schoolhouse. Joyce enjoyed the natural environment of farm country, and displayed a precocious interest in books and writing. Although her parents had little education, they encouraged her ambitions. When, at age 14, her grandmother gave her first typewriter, she began consciously preparing herself, "writing novel after novel" throughout high school and college.
When she transferred to the high school in Lockport, she quickly distinguished herself as an excellent student. She contributed to her high school newspaper and won a scholarship to attend Syracuse University, where she majored in English. When she was only 19, she won the "college short story" contest sponsored by Mademoiselle magazine. Oates was valedictorian of her graduating class. After receiving her BA degree, she earned her Master's in a single year at the University of Wisconsin. While studying in Wisconsin she met Raymond Smith. The two were married after a three-month courtship.
In 1962, the couple settled in Detroit, Michigan. Joyce taught at the University of Detroit in the 1960s. The civil rights’ violent realities influenced much of her early fiction. Her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, was published when she was 28. Her novel received the National Book Award. In 1968, Joyce took a job at the University of Windsor in the Canadian province of Ontario. In the ten years that followed, Joyce Carol Oates published new books at the extraordinary rate of two or three per year, while teaching full-time. Many of her novels sold well. Despite some critical grumbling about her phenomenal productivity, Oates had become one of the most respected and honored writers in the United States though only in her thirties.
While still in Canada, Oates and her husband started a small press and began to publish a literary magazine, The Ontario Review. They continued these activities after 1978, when they moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Since 1978, Joyce Carol Oates has taught in the creative writing program at Princeton University. Her literary work continued. In the early 1980s, Oates surprised critics and readers with a series of novels, beginning with Bellefluer, in which she reinvented the conventions of Gothic fiction. Just as suddenly, she returned, at the end of the decade, to her familiar realistic ground with a series of ambitious family chronicles, including You Must Remember This, and Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart. The novels Solstice and Marya: A Life also date from this period. She used the materials of her family and childhood to create moving studies of the female experience.
In addition to her literary fiction, she has written a series of experimental suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. To date, Joyce Carol Oates has written 56 novels, over 30 collections of short stories, eight volumes of poetry, plays, innumerable essays and book reviews, as well as longer nonfiction works on literary subjects ranging from the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the fiction of Dostoyevsky and James Joyce, to studies of the gothic and horror genres, and on such non-literary subjects as the painter George Bellows and the boxer Mike Tyson. In 1996, Oates received the PEN/Malamud Award for "a lifetime of literary achievement." Today, Joyce Carol Oates continues to live and write in Princeton, New Jersey.
When she transferred to the high school in Lockport, she quickly distinguished herself as an excellent student. She contributed to her high school newspaper and won a scholarship to attend Syracuse University, where she majored in English. When she was only 19, she won the "college short story" contest sponsored by Mademoiselle magazine. Oates was valedictorian of her graduating class. After receiving her BA degree, she earned her Master's in a single year at the University of Wisconsin. While studying in Wisconsin she met Raymond Smith. The two were married after a three-month courtship.
In 1962, the couple settled in Detroit, Michigan. Joyce taught at the University of Detroit in the 1960s. The civil rights’ violent realities influenced much of her early fiction. Her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, was published when she was 28. Her novel received the National Book Award. In 1968, Joyce took a job at the University of Windsor in the Canadian province of Ontario. In the ten years that followed, Joyce Carol Oates published new books at the extraordinary rate of two or three per year, while teaching full-time. Many of her novels sold well. Despite some critical grumbling about her phenomenal productivity, Oates had become one of the most respected and honored writers in the United States though only in her thirties.
While still in Canada, Oates and her husband started a small press and began to publish a literary magazine, The Ontario Review. They continued these activities after 1978, when they moved to Princeton, New Jersey. Since 1978, Joyce Carol Oates has taught in the creative writing program at Princeton University. Her literary work continued. In the early 1980s, Oates surprised critics and readers with a series of novels, beginning with Bellefluer, in which she reinvented the conventions of Gothic fiction. Just as suddenly, she returned, at the end of the decade, to her familiar realistic ground with a series of ambitious family chronicles, including You Must Remember This, and Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart. The novels Solstice and Marya: A Life also date from this period. She used the materials of her family and childhood to create moving studies of the female experience.
In addition to her literary fiction, she has written a series of experimental suspense novels under the pseudonym Rosamond Smith. To date, Joyce Carol Oates has written 56 novels, over 30 collections of short stories, eight volumes of poetry, plays, innumerable essays and book reviews, as well as longer nonfiction works on literary subjects ranging from the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the fiction of Dostoyevsky and James Joyce, to studies of the gothic and horror genres, and on such non-literary subjects as the painter George Bellows and the boxer Mike Tyson. In 1996, Oates received the PEN/Malamud Award for "a lifetime of literary achievement." Today, Joyce Carol Oates continues to live and write in Princeton, New Jersey.
READ-A-LIKES
Margaret Atwood - Similar to Oates, Atwood is a prolific and versatile writer that delves into provocative issues such as feminism, families, relationships and politics. Try reading Alias Grace or The Year of the Flood: a novel.
Chris Bohjalian - Fans of Oates appreciate Bohjalian's provocative novels that deal with controversial topics and difficult situations. Readers should try Midwives or Secrets of Eden:a novel.
Doris Lessing - This acclaimed novelist is another good suggestion for fans of Oates. Her work addresses social, cultural and environmental issues at great length. Good novels to start with are The Golden Notebook or The Sweetest Dream.
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