Joyce Carol Oates (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

Biography

Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938, in Lockport, New York, a small city on the Erie Barge Canal near Buffalo, to Fredric James and Caroline (Bush) Oates. Her father was a tool and die designer, and Oates's childhood was spent in a rural town, where she attended a one-room schoolhouse. From earliest memory she wanted to be an author. As a small child she drew pictures to tell stories; later she wrote them out, sometimes producing handwritten books of up to two hundred pages with carefully designed covers.

Oates's childhood was simple and happy, and...

[The entire page is 10061 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass