Who’s That Indie Author? Darlene Foster

Darlene Foster

Author Name: Darlene Foster

Genre: Middle Grade Fiction

Books: Amanda in Malta, Amanda in Holland, Amanda in New Mexico, Amanda on the Danube, Amanda in Alberta, Amanda in England, Amanda in Spain, Amanda in Arabia

Bio: Darlene Foster, a long-time dreamer and tale spinner, is the author of the exciting Amanda Travels series featuring spunky Amanda Ross, a twelve-year-old girl who loves to travel. All ages enjoy following Amanda as she unravels one mystery after another in unique destinations. When not travelling herself, Darlene divides her time between Canada’s west coast and the Spanish Costa Blanca with her husband and entertaining rescue dogs, Dot and Lia. 

What got you started as a writer? I’ve been telling stories since I could talk. My grade-three teacher encouraged me to write my stories down, so that got me started. I had a short story published in a local newspaper when I was twelve years old. And I’ve been writing ever since.

What is your writing routine? Now that I am retired I don’t have as much of a writing routine as I did when I was working full time. I still try to write for a couple of hours each day. It often ends up in the evening after dinner as I tend to get busy during the day—walking the dogs, going for coffee, reading on my terrace, you know, things retired people do.

What route did you take to get your books published? I spent five years sending out query letters looking for a publisher for my first book. Every rejection letter was like a stab to my heart. But, as time went on, the letters became nicer and more encouraging. So I didn’t give up. Eventually a small independent Canadian publisher showed interest in e-publishing Amada in Arabia. I was delighted as e-publishing was just taking off. It did well and my publisher decided to offer the book in a printed version as well. She also asked me if I would consider a series. As it happened, I had another book written by then and had ideas for a couple more.

What things do you do to promote your books? My favourite thing to do is visit schools and libraries, reading from my books and discussing writing with young readers. One young boy was so excited to meet me, he made me feel like a rock star! He loved my books and I’m sure he told his friends. I also visit book stores and coffee shops to do signings. The other part of promotion is on-line. I am on all the popular social media sites and have a blog. For the past two years, in person visits have been limited so promoting online has been essential. I have also been doing virtual school visits which has been fun. I’ve been to Ireland, England, and a number of places in the US and didn’t have to fly there!

What is your favorite genre to read and why? I read a mix of genres but my favourite are historical novels. I love reading about people and events from the past. I’m currently reading War and Peace as part of a read-along, and I am learning a lot about Russia during the Napoleonic wars. We can learn a lot about people by reading historic books.

Do you prefer to write dialogue or description? Initially I preferred writing description, but I soon learned that readers, especially young readers, prefer dialogue. Now I enjoy writing dialogue. I have learned that it can move the action along and provide description as well. Better to hear someone describe something than to read detailed descriptions by the writer.  Dialogue keeps the reader connected to the characters.

Have any of your characters ever surprised you? Did this change the plot of your book? Characters do surprise me at times. Amanda sometimes does things she shouldn’t, but I let her as she has to learn how to get herself out of bad situations. Since I am a pantster and don’t plot out my books, this doesn’t change anything but moves the plot along.

What is the most difficult thing you have accomplished in your life? I packed up and moved from Canada to Spain seven years ago. That was very difficult but it was something I wanted to do for a long time. I’m happy that I stepped out of my comfort zone and did it.

What three events or people have most influenced how you live your life? That’s easy, my mom, my dad and Miss Roll, my grade-three teacher. My parents taught me the value of hard work, honesty and kindness, my teacher taught me to follow my dreams.

What would you tell your younger self? I would tell my younger self to stop worrying. I come from a long line of worriers and have spent way too much of my life worrying about things I have no control over and many things that never happened. I have found that if you don’t worry about things, they always work out the way they are supposed to.  

Have you ever met up with a bear on a hike? If so, what did you do? If not, are you looking up what to do right now? I have never met up with a bear on a hike. They say to play dead but I’m afraid I would run like hell! I used to have nightmares about bears as a child, even though we lived in an area where there were no bears. I believe it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears that caused this fear.

You’re locked in your local library for the night with no dinner. Thank goodness you have water, but you only have enough change to buy one item from the vending machine. Choices are limited to: Fudge Pop Tarts, Snickers or Doritos. Which would you choose and why? I would choose the fudge pop tarts because they would keep me full longer. There are worse things than being locked in a library!

What’s the largest number of people you’ve had in your kitchen at one time? My kitchen here in Spain is very small and I have ever only had myself and one other person in it. Even that was awkward. I loved those huge old farm kitchens where dozens of people would gather.  Great memories. The kitchen was the hub of family life.

Closing thoughts: Thanks so much for featuring me here on your interesting blog. I enjoyed answering your thought provoking questions. Some of which stirred up memories. Now I hope I don’t have any bear nightmares.

Website and social media links:
Website
Facebook
Amazon author page
WordPress Blog
Goodreads
Twitter

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Are you an indie or self-published author?  Do you want to build your author network? Get your name out on Who’s That Indie Author!

Email bvitelli2009@gmail.com for a bio template and other details.

Who’s That Classic Author? Edgar Allan Poe

poets.org

Hi Everyone – this post originally appeared in 2015, but I’ve spiffed it up and I’m posting it again, in case you missed it way back when!

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) was an American writer, editor and literary critic and is mostly known for his Gothic short fiction and poetry. Much of his work incorporates suspenseful themes of horror and death. He is considered the inventor of the modern detective story and a contributor to the development of science fiction. Poe was known for writing vicious reviews and made a number of enemies because of them. He died in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances, after being discovered nearly unconscious outside a bar room.

Some quick facts:

• Poe was the second of three children.
• His parents were traveling actors.
• His father abandoned the family in 1810 and his mother died when Poe was three years old.
• He was raised by John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant, and his wife Frances Allan.
• Allan tried to make Poe into a businessman, but Poe preferred writing poetry. Their relationship had many ups and downs.
• In 1826, Poe enrolled at University of Virginia, but left after one term due to lack of money. Allan had sent him there with less than one third of what he needed and Poe gambled to pay his debts and burned his furniture to stay warm.
• After leaving the university, he adopted the pseudonym “Henri Le Rennet”.
• In 1827, he published his first book of poetry, Tamerlane.
• That same year, at age 18, he enlisted in U.S. Army under the name “Edgar A. Perry” claiming he was 22. He served for two years, became a Sergeant Major and then tried to get out of the remaining three years by confessing his real name and situation. His commanding officer said the only way Poe could leave the army was if he reconciled with his foster father. Poe reached out to Allan for help, but Allan ignored his request. Eventually, however, Allan gave in and used his influence to get Poe into West Point.
• In 1830, Poe entered West Point and was thrown out eight months later.
• In 1833, he moved to Baltimore where one of his short stories, “MS. Found in a Bottle” won a contest sponsored by the Saturday Visiter.
• In 1835, Poe became an editor for Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where his short stories were published. His boss fired him three weeks later for being drunk on the job, but he was eventually taken back and worked there until 1837.
• Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm in 1835. They had a happy marriage until her death in 1847, despite rumors of affairs.  Poe was devastated by her death and lived only two more years.

From left: Virginia Clemm, Rufus Griswold, Nancy Richmond

• During this period, Poe became rivals with Rufus Griswold when Griswold took Poe’s place as editor (at a higher salary) of the publication, Graham’s Magazine. Poe had also written some biting reviews of Griswold’s work,  adding to the rivalry.
• In 1845, “The Raven” was published and made Poe famous.
  In 1848, Poe met Nancy Richmond, the wife of a wealthy businessman. They had an intense, but platonic love affair.
• In 1849, Poe was found nearly unconscious outside a bar room. He died three days later. An article from Smithsonian.com – “The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe” – explores different theories as to the cause of Poe’s death.  Poe was found outside a polling house for elections on an election night. Popular theories include being beaten, excessive alcohol consumption, rabies, poisoning, murder, and the practice of “cooping” (a type of voter fraud in which a man was kidnapped and disguised and forced to vote multiple times for a candidate, receiving alcohol after each vote).
• After Poe’s death, Rufus Griswold wrote an unflattering obituary, and later, a memoir/biography about Poe in which he portrayed Poe as drunk and a womanizer. Ironically, the biography led to increased sales of Poe’s work.
• Griswold died of tuberculosis in 1857. The only decorations in his room when he died were three portraits, one of himself, one of Poe and one of the American poet Frances Osgood, who had a complicated and intense relationship with Poe!

Here is a partial list of Poe’s short fiction and poetry

FICTION
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Pit and the Pendulum”
“The Purloined Letter”
“The Tell-Tale Heart”

POETRY
“Annabel Lee”
“Lenore”
“The Raven”

Thanks to the following websites for providing information about Poe:

The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe
Biography.com
Wikipedia article about Edgar Allan Poe
Wikipedia article about Rufus Griswold
The World of Edgar Allan Poe

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Who’s That Author? Gustave Flaubert

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) was a French writer and is most well-known for his novel, Madame Bovary, a story about a young provincial woman’s adulterous affairs. Upon its initial publication in serial form, many people declared the novel scandalous and the government charged Flaubert with immorality and obscenity. He was tried and acquitted, however, and Madame Bovary became a huge success. Today, the novel is considered a masterpiece.

Flaubert is regarded as the master of literary realism, the depiction of people in ordinary moments and in situations as they are, not as romanticized ideals. Flaubert was also a perfectionist and insisted on finding the exact word. He was known to toil for a week on just one page.

Image: World Atlas

Flaubert was born in in Rouen, France to a family of doctors. He was the fifth of six children. His father was the chief surgeon at the hospital in Rouen and his mother was the daughter of a doctor. A writer from a very young age, Flaubert studied law at his parents’ urging, but gave it up after he was diagnosed with what was most likely epilepsy. He returned to Rouen to take up writing full-time. He wrote Madame Bovary over a period of five years.

Louise Colet, Image: Encyclopedia Britannica

Although he never married, Flaubert became infatuated at age sixteen with an older married woman named Elisa Schlésinger, who was the subject of Memoirs of a Madman. He also had a romantic but tumultuous relationship with the poet Louise Colet. He traveled extensively as a young man, to England, Greece, Egypt, Beirut, Istanbul and Tunisia, but always returned to Rouen.

Like other creative minds, Flaubert was friends with many writers and poets, including Maxime Du Camp, who first published Madame Bovary in his literary magazine, George Sand and Emile Zola.

In addition to epilepsy, Flaubert suffered from venereal disease most of his life. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 58. Several weeks before his death, already in ill health, he told his niece, “Sometimes I think I’m liquefying like an old Camembert.”

Below is a list of his major works (from Wikipedia):

Rêve d’enfer (1837)
Memoirs of a Madman (1838)
Madame Bovary (1857)
Salammbô (1862)
Sentimental Education (1869)
Le Candidat (1874)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874)
Three Tales (1877)
Le Château des cœurs (1880)
Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881)
Dictionary of Received Ideas (1911)
Souvenirs, notes et pensées intimes (1965)

Thank you to the following sources:
Biography.com
Britannica.com
Famousauthors.org
The Literature Network
Wikipedia – Gustave Flaubert
Wikipedia – Literary Realism

Click here for a review of Madame Bovary.

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Who’s That Author? Tom Franklin

Source: bookfans.net

Tom Franklin is a best-selling, award-winning American writer from Dickinson, Alabama.  He is currently an associate professor in the MFA program at University of Mississippi.  He is considered a diverse Southern writer of several genres, including crime fiction, mystery and literary fiction.  Franklin’s wife, Beth Ann Fennelly, is an American poet and prose writer.  She also works at Ole Miss and is the Poet Laureate of Mississippi.  They met at the University of Arkansas MFA program.

Franklin put himself through college at University of South Alabama, after his father cut off his tuition because of bad grades.  To pay for school, he worked in a wide range of places:  in a warehouse, at a plant that made sandblasting grit and at a chemical plant where he cleaned up hazardous waste.  He also worked in a morgue, a job that was unpopular, but one he enjoyed because of the stories he heard.

When asked about his writing, Franklin responded,

I’m a very happy person and very lucky with my life, my wife and my children, but when I’m writing I find conflict interesting and it goes to dark places for me.  I’m interested in the shadowy part of humans.  If I try to write against the dark, it feels false.

Awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger Award.

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Books by Tom Franklin:

Mississippi Noir (2016)
The Titled World (2013) – co-written with his wife, Beth Ann Fennelly
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010)
Smonk or Widow Town (2007)
Hell at the Breech (2003)
Poachers (2000)

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Check out these links for more information:

Amazon Author Page – Tom Franklin
Harper Collins Publishers
LitLovers
Wikipedia

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Interested in Tom Franklin’s books?  Click here to read
my 5 Bookmark review of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter.

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Who’s That Author? Tim Gautreaux

I just read a great short story by Tim Gautreaux called “Same Place, Same Things” and while I’m working on my review, here’s a Who’s That Author profile on Gautreaux, including excerpts from an excellent interview with Margaret D. Bauer for the online journal, Southern Spaces.

Photo: Randy Bergeron

Tim Gautreaux – Amazon Author Page

Tim Gautreaux is the author of three novels and three collections of stories. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Harper’s Magazine, and The New Yorker, as well as in volumes of the O. Henry and The Best American Short Story annuals. A professor emeritus in English at Southeastern Louisiana University, he lives with his family in Hammond, Louisiana.

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Interesting facts about Tim Gautreaux:

• He is a descendant of the French Acadians, who came from Nova Scotia and settled in Louisiana.
• Gautreaux most often writes about the white working class of Louisiana. He is sometimes called a Cajun writer, but he resists that label, saying that he simply writes about the people and the area he knows.
• His father was a tugboat captain and his grandfather was a steamboat chief engineer.
• He majored in English at Nicholls State University and earned his PhD at University of South Carolina.
• Gautreaux began his teaching career at Southeastern Louisiana University.
• Although Gautreaux was forty-nine when his first book was published, his short fiction had already received much recognition and appeared in The Atlanic Monthly, Harper’s, GQ and several short story anthologies.

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Great quotes from Gautreaux in an interview with Margaret Bauer

So when you mentioned that I only started publishing in major venues in my forties, well, most people do that. It takes twenty years for you to develop the language skills, the intellectual filters in your brain that tell you what to put on the page and what to leave off the page. It takes an incredibly long time to develop these skills.

Unless you’re a truly rare talent, generally you’re not going to sell a book to a decent house or in a major publication until you’re along the line a ways.

On the subject of short fiction:

The short story is a very important genre. Think of the major American writers who are known more for their short stories than their novels. That statement goes back to Hawthorne and Poe and applies to contemporary writers like Joyce Carol Oates.

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Collections of short stories:
Same Place, Same Things (2013)
Waiting for the Evening News (2010)
Welding with Children (2009)

Novels:
The Missing (2010)
The Clearing (2004)
The Next Step in the Dance (1999)

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Thanks to the following for information about Gautreaux:

• Tim Gautreaux – Amazon Author Page
• “An Interview with Tim Gautreaux, ‘Cartographer of Louisiana Backroads’” by Margaret D. Bauer, published in Southern Spaces.
• Wikipedia – Tim Gautreaux

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Click here to read my review of “Same Place, Same Things”

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Who’s That Classic Author? Edgar Allan Poe

poets.org

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849) was an American writer, editor and literary critic and is mostly known for his Gothic short fiction and poetry. Much of his work incorporates suspenseful themes of horror and death. He is considered the inventor of the modern detective story and a contributor to the development of science fiction. Poe was known for writing vicious reviews and made a number of enemies because of them. He died in Baltimore under mysterious circumstances, after being discovered nearly unconscious outside a bar room.

Some quick facts:

• Poe was the second of three children.
• His parents were traveling actors.
• His father abandoned the family in 1810 and his mother died when Poe was three years old.
• He was raised by John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant, and his wife Frances Allan.
• Allan tried to make Poe into a businessman, but Poe preferred writing poetry. Their relationship had many ups and downs.
• In 1826, Poe enrolled at University of Virginia, but left after one term due to lack of money. Allan had sent him there with less than one third of what he needed and Poe gambled to pay his debts and burned his furniture to stay warm.
• After leaving the university, he adopted the pseudonym “Henri Le Rennet”.
• In 1827, he published his first book of poetry, Tamerlane.
• That same year, at age 18, he enlisted in U.S. Army under the name “Edgar A. Perry” claiming he was 22. He served for two years, became a Sergeant Major and then tried to get out of the remaining three years by confessing his real name and situation. His commanding officer said the only way Poe could leave the army was if he reconciled with his foster father. Poe reached out to Allan for help, but Allan ignored his request. Eventually, however, Allan gave in and used his influence to get Poe into West Point.
• In 1830, Poe entered West Point and was thrown out eight months later.
• In 1833, he moved to Baltimore where one of his short stories, “MS. Found in a Bottle” won a contest sponsored by the Saturday Visiter.
• In 1835, Poe became an editor for Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, where his short stories were published. His boss fired him three weeks later for being drunk on the job, but he was eventually taken back and worked there until 1837.
• Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm in 1835. They had a happy marriage until her death in 1847, despite rumors of affairs.  Poe was devastated by her death and lived only two more years.

From left: Virginia Clemm, Rufus Griswold, Nancy Richmond

• During this period, Poe became rivals with Rufus Griswold when Griswold took Poe’s place as editor (at a higher salary) of the publication, Graham’s Magazine. Poe had also written some biting reviews of Griswold’s work,  adding to the rivalry.
• In 1845, “The Raven” was published and made Poe famous.
  In 1848, Poe met Nancy Richmond, the wife of a wealthy businessman. They had an intense, but platonic love affair.
• In 1849, Poe was found nearly unconscious outside a bar room. He died three days later. An article from Smithsonian.com – “The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe” – explores different theories as to the cause of Poe’s death.  Poe was found outside a polling house for elections on an election night. Popular theories include being beaten, excessive alcohol consumption, rabies, poisoning, murder, and the practice of “cooping” (a type of voter fraud in which a man was kidnapped and disguised and forced to vote multiple times for a candidate, receiving alcohol after each vote).
• After Poe’s death, Rufus Griswold wrote an unflattering obituary, and later, a memoir/biography about Poe in which he portrayed Poe as drunk and a womanizer. Ironically, the biography led to increased sales of Poe’s work.
• Griswold died of tuberculosis in 1857. The only decorations in his room when he died were three portraits, one of himself, one of Poe and one of the American poet Frances Osgood, who had a complicated and intense relationship with Poe!

Here is a partial list of Poe’s short fiction and poetry

FICTION
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Pit and the Pendulum”
“The Purloined Letter”
“The Tell-Tale Heart”

POETRY
“Annabel Lee”
“Lenore”
“The Raven”

Thanks to the following websites for providing information about Poe:

The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe
Biography.com
Wikipedia article about Edgar Allan Poe
Wikipedia article about Rufus Griswold
The World of Edgar Allan Poe

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

Who’s That Author? Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford – from huffingtonpost.com

Jamie Ford (1968 – ) is an American author of two best-selling books, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (2009) and Songs of Willow Frost (2013). Ford was born in California and grew up in Oregon and Washington. His great grandfather was Min Chung, a Nevada mining pioneer who emigrated from China in 1865 to San Francisco. When his grandfather arrived in America, he changed his name to Ford and, as Jamie Ford writes, confused “countless generations.”

Interestingly, according to a biography on about.com, Ford’s grandfather, George William Ford,

changed his name back to George Chung in order to gain more success as an ethnic actor in Hollywood. In Ford’s second novel, he explores Asians in Hollywood in the early twentieth century, around the time his grandfather was pursuing acting.

Ford graduated from the Art Institute of Seattle and, before becoming an author, held jobs in the art field and in advertising. In addition to his two books, Ford writes short fiction and is an active blogger.

For more information about Jamie Ford, check out this Wikipedia article on Jamie Ford.

Be sure to visit Jamie Ford’s website at jamieford.com.

Click here to read an interesting biography of Jamie Ford in the About Entertainment section of About.com.

You may also want to read one of Ford’s recent blog posts about the auctioning off of photos from the Seattle’s Panama Hotel.

Click here to read my review of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Click here to learn more about the Panama Hotel.

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

 

Who’s That Author? Robert McCloskey

Robert McCloskey

Robert McCloskey (1914-2003) was an American writer and illustrator of children’s books. He was the first person to be awarded the Caldecott Medal twice, once in 1941 for Make Way for Ducklings, and also in 1957 for Time of Wonder.

McCloskey was born and raised in Hamilton, Ohio. Before becoming an artist, he had a great many interests. He studied music and played the piano, harmonica, drums and oboe. He loved mechanics and electronics and spent a lot of time as a child inventing different gadgets, including elaborate lightings for the family Christmas tree. He discovered art in high school and won a scholarship at the Vesper George School of Design in Boston. McCloskey also studied art at the National Academy of Design in New York. McCloskey wrote and illustrated eight of his own books, and illustrated twelve additional children’s books.

He married Peggy Durand, daughter of the children’s author, Ruth Sawyer. They settled in upstate New York and spent summers in Maine and raised two daughters.

Books by Robert McCloskey:

Lentil (1940)
Make Way for Ducklings (1941) Caldecott Medal
Homer Price (1943)
Blueberries for Sal (1948) Caldecott Honor
Centerburg Tales (1951)
One Morning in Maine (1952) Caldecott Honor
Time of Wonder (1957) Caldecott Medal
Burt Dow, Deep Water Man (1963)

Thanks to Wikipedia and the The New York Times for this information!

Click here for my review of Make Way for Ducklings.

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Who’s That Author? Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut
notablebiographies.com

Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007) was an American author and humorist, well known for his use of black humor and satire. Over a period of more than 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays and five works of non-fiction. Slaughterhouse-Five was his sixth book, published in 1969, during the Vietnam War. It became his most famous book.

Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was the youngest of three children and his grandparents on both sides were German immigrants. Because of the anti-German sentiment in America during World War I, however, the Vonneguts gave up their German heritage. Vonnegut’s father was an architect and his mother came from one of the wealthiest families in Indianapolis, owners of a brewery.

Vonnegut attended Cornell University in 1940 and was editor of the school newspaper. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Vonnegut  dropped out of Cornell and joined the Army as a private. In 1944, Vonnegut was captured by the Germans and was sent to Dresden, where he lived in a slaughterhouse and worked in a factory. When the Allied forces bombed Dresden in 1945, Vonnegut survived by hiding in an underground meat locker. Vonnegut’s experience at Dresden affected him deeply and Slaughterhouse-Five is a reflection of this experience.

In 1967 he won a Guggenheim Fellowship for research in Germany and traveled to Eastern Europe, including Dresden. He integrated his writings about World War II into the book that became Slaughterhouse-Five.

Slaughterhouse-Five sent Vonnegut’s career to new heights. He soon became a regular commencement speaker, lectured at Harvard, taught at City University of New York and received many honorary degrees. And he continued to write.

In his later years, Vonnegut was an outspoken supporter of several causes: preserving Constitutional freedoms, nuclear arms control and protection of the environment. He wrote throughout his life and died in 2007, at age 84.

Thanks to the following sources:

Wikipedia
Vonnegut.com
The Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 64 – a compilation of four interviews.
Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

Visit The Strongest Librarian for A Complete List of Kurt Vonnegut Books.

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Who’s That Author? Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates enc1102student.wordpress.com

Joyce Carol Oates (1938 – ) is an American author of more than 70 books, including novels, short story collections, poetry volumes, plays, essays, and criticism, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde. Oates has also written suspense novels under the pseudonyms Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly. Among her many honors are the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and the National Book Award. Oates 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.

Oates grew up on a farm in upstate New York. She loved reading and writing during her childhood and received her first typewriter as a teenager. After graduating from high school, she was awarded a scholarship to Syracuse University where she graduated valedictorian in 1960. In 1961, she completed her Master’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin and married Raymond Smith, an English student at the University. Before becoming a professor at Princeton, Oates taught at the University of Detroit and University of Windsor, in Canada. She and her husband were also co-editors of The Ontario Review, a literary publication.

In 2008, Oates suffered through a nearly debilitating depression when Smith died unexpectedly. Her memoir, A Widow’s Story details this dark period of her life. In 2009, Oates married Charles Gross, a professor of neuroscience at Princeton.

Oates continues to write and published two novels in 2013, Daddy Love and The Accursed.

For more information about Joyce Carol Oates, including a full list of her writing, visit the following links:

Amazon.com
The Academy of Achievement
Wikipedia
Biography.com

And be sure to check out my reviews of the following work by Oates:

A Widow’s Story
Little Bird of Heaven
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”

 Thanks for visiting – come back soon!