Biography of Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates was born in 1938 in Lockport, New york and is known for her novels, stories, poetry, and essays.  Oates “focuses upon the spiritual, and intellectual decline of modern American society” (“Joyce Carol Oates Biography”).  She went to a small school for elementary school and learned to tell stories by drawing before she learned how to write.  She got her first typewriter in high school and continuously wrote novels during high school and college.  Oates grew up with a love for reading and writing.  For college, she went to Syracuse university then got her masters from the university of Wisconsin and her first job was at the university of Detroit.  Shortly after she moved to work at the university of Windsor which is located in Canada.  She and her husband were co-editors of The Ontario Review but then began to work as a teacher at Princeton University.  Oates won the National Book Award for her 1969 novel Them and at Syracuse she won the coveted Mademoiselle fiction contest.  Currently, Oates is still working as a teacher at Princeton University.  She is most famous for her incredible work in writing short stories.