With Joyce Carol Oates Author Wednesday, July 02, 2003; 4:00 p.m ET
With a balance of dark suspense and tenderness, author Joyce Carol Oates probes the contemporary tragedy of ethnic hatred and challenges our accepted limits of desire in her new novel, "The Tattooed Girl." Oates will be online Wednesday, July 1 at 4 p.m. ET, to discuss her new novel and her prolific writing career.Submit your questions and comments before or during today's discussion. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Camden, Ariz.: How many books have been published in the names of Joyce Carol Oates and Rosamond Smith (and others)?
Joyce Carol Oates: I don't really know. It's difficult to give a precise number because many of my titles are limited edition books that are really short stories or small collections of poems, so it's misleading to give a number, so I usually decline to do so.
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Columbia, Md.: Thanks for doing this chat. Seems we usually hear about your novels and short stories, but I also enjoy your poetry and wonder if you have plans for another collection soon? Thanks
Joyce Carol Oates: I will have another collection in about three or four years titled "The Coming Storm." Thanks for your query!
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Tinseltown: What was your childhood like? Were you parents disciplinarians through guilt and yelling, or physical responders who spanked, or lenient in philosophy, or some other combination? Do you see the affects of your upbringing in the characters you write?
Joyce Carol Oates: I grew up on a farm in upstate New York, my parents were very concerned with keeping the farm going and my father had supplemented income by working at a factory. Neither of my parents was strong disciplinarian and when I look back upon those years I can see that they must have sacrificed a good deal of their youth to keep the family as prosperous as we were. (They were married very young and I was born when my mother was about 19). It was a different era then and life was generally harder, but it some ways easier.
Certainly I write out of my own experience and novels like "A Garden of Earthly Delights" which was recently reprinted, I draw upon those memories quite directly.
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Washington, D.C.: Dear Ms. Oates: I've enjoyed your writing, in particular a short story I studied years ago in a college English class, about the teenage girl who was seduced by the older guy in strange boots.
I'm thinking of applying to a creative writing MFA program. Do you think such programs are a good idea for writers who wish to work on their craft and maybe teach writing? Any other advice for an aspiring writer?
Joyce Carol Oates: Yes, I definitely think that MFA programs are excellent. A young writer needs companionship and needs helpful supportive readers of his or her work. There is no place quite so supportive as a writing workshop.
My best advice for an aspiring writer is to read widely and to read what interests you. And to travel a bit, meet and listen to a variety of people.
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Somewhere, USA: Tell us about your new book
Joyce Carol Oates: The Tattooed Girl is a love story that goes wrong. I had envisioned a novel in which a writer brings into his life unwisely an assistant whom he befriends but doesn't really know and I had thought of this novel in the wake of 9/11 because it focuses upon the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and how ignorance of other people allows us sometimes to completely misread them with disastrous results. But it is for all its violence fundamentally a thwarted love story.
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Silver Spring, Md.: When will you go to Hollywood to write screen plays for light comedies?
Joyce Carol Oates: I have written screenplays intermittedly. I once worked with martin Scorcese on a project, but it did not get funded. I no longer have much interest in working on screenplays though a number of my novels have been optioned. I prefer to leave screenwriting to professionals.
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Boston, Mass.: I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed reading your short stories so much (ever since I was introduced to them in a high school English class called "The Perverse and Bizarre.") You're an inspiration.
Joyce Carol Oates: Thank you!
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Joyce Carol Oates: (which was I, perverse or the bizarre?)
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Sacramento, Calif.: Do you still run?
Joyce Carol Oates: Yes, I run every day when I can and when its too hot I bicycle (do you?)
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Round Hill, Va.:
Dear Ms. Oates,
What an honor to be able to chat with you...ever since I read "where are you going, where have you been" you've been one of my all-time favorites. okay, enough schmoozing....I have a two-parter. First, I wonder if you'll say a little about how you practice your writing...set aside time each day, or wait 'til the spirit moves you? also, i'm wondering which of your characters turned-out most differently (as they often do) than you'd planned.
Thanks for your time!
I'll attach my novel another time....HA!
Joyce Carol Oates: I tend to write every morning till about 1 p.m. and often in the late afternoon, but I don't think that one should be rigid or overly proscribed in any kind of artistic endeavor.
Of all my novels, the one that turned out most differently for me was "Blonde" -- the story of Norma Jean Baker who becomes Marilyn Monroe. I had anticipated the novel being about 175 pages long, dealing with a character seen primarily from the outside, and I ended up with a thousand page manuscript about an individual with whom I came to identify very closely and very emotionally. It was an exhausting experience. I must concede it was worth it, but I could not live through it again.
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Arlington, Va: What is your connection to Marilyn?
Joyce Carol Oates: I first saw a photograph of Norma Jean Baker taken when she was 17 years old and I was so struck by the disparity between that image of a quite pretty but ordinary girl and the later image of the very artificial Marilyn Monroe. It was that disparity which seemed to me fascinating as in a perverse fairy tale, that excited me about writing this novel. I was never especially interested in Marilyn Monroe the film actress, but I became very admiring of her work after I saw all the movies of hers that are available on video.
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Little Rock, Ark.: I was pleased to find a copy of your Three Plays. Have you written other plays? I love reading all your works, and I hope you continue writing for many more years.
Joyce Carol Oates: Yes, I've written a number of plays. The most recent is called "New Plays" and published by Ontario Review Press, distributed by Norton. I will have a new play off-Broadway opening in October called "Bad Girls."
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Vienna, Va.:
Ms. Oates,
How old are you now and how old were you when you decided that you would write for a living?
Joyce Carol Oates: I never actually decided I would write for a living. I've always been a teacher and never felt comfortable with only writing. I recommend to my writing students that they definitely have a job along with their writing.
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Harrisburg, Pa.: Have you ever considered writing a screenplay? Decades ago, many great authors wrote some screenplays, yet some stated they found it more difficult to write a screenplay than a novel. Since then, there have been few novelists who have crossed over to writing screenplays. Have you ever been tempted to give it a try?
Joyce Carol Oates: Most writers only write screenplays for money. It's because the screenwriter has virtually no control over the material, a movie ultimately belongs to the director and producer. Your screenplay is purchased from you and can afterwards be altered or tossed away by the director. This is in contrast to the autonomy we have as writers of prose. Writing plays is different because no director or producer can change any line in a play without the permission of the playwright. The play is not purchased outright.
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Annapolis, Md.: Dear Ms. Oates,
I am an aspiring writer and I work full-time in the IT industry to keep the bills paid. Sometimes (okay, all the time) I find it very difficult to drag one more word out of my brain after working on dry, dull documents all day. Do you have any advice on how I could push myself to get more creative work done when I feel like collapsing in front of the TV and putting my brain on auto-pilot?
I need to figure something out. If I don't write it in the first place, it will never be published. And if I am never published, I will never reach the level where I could quit my IT job and write full-time. Please help, I don't want to slave away in the IT industry until it's time to retire.
Thanks,
Michelle
Joyce Carol Oates: Perhaps there was a time in your life when you did write with some ease and inspiration and if you could replicate some of the conditions of that time your old inspiration might return to you.
Clearly you need time to spend when you're not thinking about anything so you can daydream or meditate -- go for long walks or jog. If you're exhausted, you won't be able to write.
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