American author Joyce Carol Oates was born June 16, 1938, in Lockport, N.Y. Her mom was a homemaker of Hungarian descent and her dad a tool and die designer. She grew up on her parents’ farm outside town with her two younger siblings and grew to love reading at an early age.
American author Joyce Carol Oates was born June 16, 1938, in Lockport, N.Y. Her mom was a homemaker of Hungarian descent and her dad a tool and die designer. She grew up on her parents’ farm outside town with her two younger siblings and grew to love reading at an early age.
She began writing at fourteen when her grandmother who was very influential in her life gave her a typewriter. This same grandmother introduced her to the local library and gave her a copy of the book Oates says made her a writer, “Alice in Wonderland.”
Joyce graduated from Syracuse University in 1960 with a B.A. in English. She published her first book, “By the North Gate,” a collection of short stories in 1963, and her first novel, “With Shuddering Fall,” published in 1964.
In 1974, Oates and her husband Raymond J. Smith founded the literary magazine “The Ontario Review,” attempting to bridge the literacy and artistic culture of both countries, the United States and Canada. In 1980, they started an independent publishing house called “The Ontario Review Books.”
Oates has written some sixty novels, short stories and eleven novellas. She is among the most distinguished writers in the United States and winner of many awards for her many writings.
We have twenty of her fiction books and one of her non-fiction books.
Remember to bring your first through 8th graders by and sign them up for the summer reading program. Our first Monday program will be June 19 at 1 p.m. here at the library.
