Literary Birthday, Joyce Carol Oates, June 16
Author of the Week
I took this photo of Joyce Carol Oates at StokerCon 2025 in Stamford, Connecticut this weekend. She is being interviewed by Ellen Datlow. What a thrill to meet such a lady of literature! She has been named ‘America’s greatest living writer’ by New York Times Magazine.
JCO has five Bram Stoker Awards, a National Book Prize, International Booker Prize, among other wins and nominations such as Shirley Jackson, World Fantasy, Locus, International Horror Guild, and five times nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
During the interview, one of many comments that stayed with me was when JCO said she doesn’t like the term ‘flash fiction’ because it’s so fleeting in perspective. She prefers ‘miniature narratives.’ Ah-ha, that term does call a deeper meaning to short fiction.
And this comment repeats in my mind.
If any author knows about creating art in fiction, the process of writing, and the realities of life, it’s JCO. Because writing is such hard work and requires a long arduous path to success, this idea of playfulness is significant to remember when struggling through—and who doesn’t love to play?
“I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card . . . and somehow the activity of writing changes everything.” JCO
Oates’s newest novel releases tomorrow, June 17.
‘A spellbinding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school—by the legendary author “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers.’ —The New York Times Magazine
‘Fox is poised to be the big escape a lot of us are looking for right about now.’—The Boston Globe
‘I found it mesmerizing, front to back.’ Michael Connelly
Joyce Carol Oates is an American novelist, short-story writer, and essayist noted for her vast literary output (63 novels) in a variety of styles and genres. Particularly effective are her depictions of violence and evil in modern society. From Britannica. More here: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joyce-Carol-Oates
You can learn more about this amazing and prolific author at her website: https://celestialtimepiece.com/2025/06/10/fox-a-novel/
And, don’t miss her On Writers Writing: https://celestialtimepiece.com/2015/01/26/on-writers-writing/
“It is a vision of life, a methodology of examination, that never fails to excite me as a writer for whom the world is indeed mysterious and unfathomably beckoning.”
My signed book, The Faith of a Writer, Life, Craft, Art.
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