We Were the Mulvaneys (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Joyce Carol Oates was born on June 16, 1938, in Lockport, a small town in rural western New York State, similar to the setting of many of her works, including We Were the Mulvaneys. Her father worked as a tool and die designer, and her mother was a homemaker. As a child, Oates spent much time on her grandparents' farm and attended a one-room schoolhouse. She completed her first novel at the age of fifteen, but it was not published.

Oates attended Syracuse University on a scholarship, graduating as valedictorian in 1960; as an undergraduate, she won the Mademoiselle magazine College Fiction Award for one of her short stories. She received her M.A. from the University of Wisconsin in 1961. After graduation, she and her husband, Raymond Joseph Smith (with whom Oates co-founded the Ontario Review in 1974) moved to Detroit. While she was teaching at the University of Detroit, one of her short stories was published in the annual Best American Short Stories anthology, reinforcing her commitment to writing. Her writing in her years in Detroit is characterized by a gritty urban vision best displayed in her novel them. From 1967 to 1978 she taught at the University of Windsor, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Oates's first few novels, starting in the early 1960s, did not gain much public attention, although they did earn her critical praise. From the beginning of her career, she garnered accolades from her peers, winning National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1966 and 1968; a Guggenheim fellowship in 1967; nominations for the National Book Award in 1968 and 1969; and an actual National Book Award in 1970. From there, her list of publications becomes massive, with a list of awards to match, including nominations by the Pulitzer Prize committee, the American Theater Critics Association, and the Horror Writers of America. As of 2006, she was one of the most prolific writers living, having published over a hundred titles, including novels, short story collections, poetry collections, plays, collections of essays, children's books, and non-fiction studies. In addition to the massive body of works published under her own name, she has also published eight novels under the pseudonym Rosalind Smith.

Since 1978, Oates has taught at Princeton University, first as a visiting writer, then as a professor, and as of 2006 as the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.