Celestial Timepiece: A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page
Since school ended last semester I have found myself reading more and more of Joyce Carol Oates over the summer and still now that school has begun again. I consider her a “cool” writer because within every piece of writing she produces I find myself amazed that she can get into her characters so deeply—even with incredibly short pieces of writing. I am in the CWPA program as a non-fiction writer, and I swear I think Joyce Carol Oates might possibly know her fictional characters even better than I know myself! Psychologically the descriptions, motives, and emotional baggage her characters carry is amazing and I find myself wanting to learn how one is able to construct such seemingly real individuals in such an effortless manner. I find that my favorite pieces by Oates’ writing come from her short story anthologies. I am constantly amazed at her talent of building a story in as little as three pages and feeling as though I know the characters even though the trip from beginning to end has been so short.
If you haven’t yet read Oates, a few of my favorite anthologies have been Haunted and The Collector of
Hearts. Within these books there’s a little something for everyone, but they are mostly horror stories. I also recommend Foxfire, Rape: A Love Story, and The Tattooed Girl—they do not disappoint!
Wow. I knew the name, but I had never bothered to look into Joyce Carol Oates. I had no idea she wrote horror. I'll have to check her out!
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