'Never rush the completion process'

 

“To write a novel is to embark on aquest that is very romantic. People have visions, and the next step is toexecute them. That's a very romantic project. Like Edvard Munch's strangedreamlike canvases where people are stylized, like 'TheScream.' Munch must have had that vision in a dream; he never saw it.” –  JoyceCarol Oates

 

Born in upstate New York on this datein 1938, Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published 58novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories,poetry, and nonfiction. 

 

Her 1960s series of 4 novels – “TheWonderland Quartet” – were all finalists for the National Book Award with thethird one, Them, winning.   Theother three are A Garden of Earthly Delights, Expensive People,and Wonderland.   Her book The Gravediggers Daughter wona National Book Critics Circle Award, and she earned O. Henry Awards forher short stories “In The Region of Ice” and “The Dead.”  Five of her books have been finalists for aPulitzer, and she’s considered a “short lister” for the Nobel.  

 

Despite her remarkable and prolificoutput, she says she never rushes the completion process.   “Myreputation for writing quickly and effortlessly notwithstanding, I am stronglyin favor of intelligent, even fastidious revision, which is, or certainlyshould be, an art in itself,” she said.