Interviews

Introduction: Ten Questions with Joyce Carol Oates

Beginning her career with the short story collection By the North Gate in 1963, Joyce Carol Oates—also a poet, playwright, critic, and editor—has emerged as one of America’s most prominent and beloved authors. It is impossible to give here a full accounting of her novels and story collections (or the prizes and honors she’s won for them), her children’s books, her mysteries written under pseudonym, or the movies made from such a body of work. The quotes we keep are many, and it is difficult even to rank the most memorable work.

On the afternoon of December 3rd, 2007, Oates visited the Washington University in St. Louis Hurst Lounge under the auspices of a colloquium entitled “Celebrating Our Books.” She was a guest of both the Center for the Humanities and Washington University Libraries.

In an interview recorded after, printed below, Oates displays just what it is that makes her so virtuosic—her vivacious and wide-ranging mind. In this interview she discusses topics ranging from the battle for Sylvia Plath’s legacy, to how connected for her running is to writing, to myth and folklore, to the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop. We open with the subject of tragic pinup Norma Jeane, and violence as a pervasive theme in Oates’ oeuvre.

By Haines Eason