Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde (a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize), and the New York Times bestsellers The Falls (winner of the 2005 Prix Femina Etranger) and The Gravedigger’s Daughter. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. In 2003 she received the Common Wealth Award for Distinguished Service in Literature and The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and in 2006 she received the Chicago Tribune Lifetime Achievement Award.Her recent novels include Little Bird of Heaven, Dear Husband, and A Fair Maiden.
From her 2010 Q & A with the Guardian:
When were you happiest?--Marshal Zeringue
On two dates: 23 January 1961 and 13 March 2009 (my two weddings).
What is your greatest fear?
What we all fear – the loss of meaning and significance in our lives.What is your earliest memory?
Feverish with measles, I lay in bed helpless, seeing my young, anxious parents hovering over me. I might have been four at the time.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
This, I fear, is yet to come.
What is your most treasured possession?
My marriage.
What would your super power be?
Super power! I...[read on]
