Joyce Carol Oates was born in Erie County in western New York in 1938. Her parents worked hard throughout the great depression to support her and her two younger siblings, her father at the tool and dye shop and her mother keeping house. Although her working class Catholic beginnings could hardly predict the literary heights she would attain later in life, she was always a serious and highachieving child and made the most of the educational opportunities that she was given.

Her early education was uneven at best. After attending a one-room schoolhouse, and junior high, in Lockport, New York, she finally found a school that had what she needed when she began riding a bus everyday to a high school outside of Buffalo. After graduation, she enrolled at Syracuse University on a scholarship and began a lifelong engagement with books and writing. By all measures she...