Literary Women 2: Joyce Carol Oates (1938~)
This astonishingly prolific writer has published dozens of short stories, novels, poetry collections and essays on topics as far-ranging as the Victorian age and boxing. Born in Upstate New York, she graduated from Syracuse University in 1960 and earned a master’s degree in English at the University of Wisconsin. She published the first of her books in 1963: By the North Gate, a volume of short stories. Her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, appeared in 1964 and the novel them (1963) won the National Book Award. Oates has since produced a steady stream of work even while teaching English at various colleges, including Princeton University. Her oeuvre includes The Goddess and Other Women (1974), Bellefleur (1980), Because It Is Better; and Because It Is My heart (1990), and Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993). Often violent or even morbid, her stories probe the dark corners of the human psyche and the underside of contemporary society.
(Excerpted from 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about Women’s History)