Encyclopedia Of Detroit

Author Joyce Carol Oates was born June 16, 1938 in Lockport, New York. The area was rural and she attended a one-room schoolhouse while she lived on her family’s farm. Oates showed a vibrant interest in books and writing from a young age. She began writing at age 14 after she received a typewriter for Christmas. Oates majored in English at Syracuse University on a scholarship, where she won the Mademoiselle Magazine “college short story” contest. She graduated as Valedictorian from Syracuse and continued on to University of Wisconsin for her M.A. in English. While studying at Wisconsin, she met Raymond Smith, who she married three months later.

Oates moved to Detroit with her husband in 1962. She initially taught at the University of Detroit, and her experiences in the city during the tumultuous 1960s greatly influenced some of her novels and short stories. She wrote her first novel, With Shuddering Fall, when she was 28. Some of her other novels such as Them, received the National Book Award. From 1968 to 1978, Oates taught at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. During this time period Oates worked at the university as well as published up to two to three books per year.

In 1978, Oates moved to Princeton, New Jersey to teach at Princeton University’s creative writing program. There, she attained the position of Distinguished Professor of Humanities. She also operated The Ontario Review, a small literary magazine with her husband. Oates reworked and reinvented a Gothic fiction convention through a new series of novels in the 1980s, starting with Bellefleur. Oates has also written a series of experimental suspense novels under the pen name Rosamond Smith.

Oates’ husband Raymond Smith passed away in 2008, a time during which Oates suffered from severe depression detailed in her memoir, A Widow’s Story. However, the following year, Oates married Dr. Charles Gross, of the Psychology Department and Neuroscience Institute of Princeton.

Oates has received a number of recognitions and awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award for “a lifetime of literary achievement,” Prix Femina Etranger award, and Pushcart Prize.