Joyce Carol Oates in conversation with Steve Wasserman

LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights and Akashic Books celebrate the publication of "Joyce Carol Oates: Letters to a Biographer," edited by Greg Johnson, published by Akashic Books. Purchase here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/joyce-carol-oates-letters-to-a-biograp/ This rich compilation of Joyce Carol Oates’s letters across four decades displays her warmth and generosity, her droll and sometimes wicked sense of humor, her phenomenal energy, and most of all, her mastery of the lost art of letter writing. In this generous selection of Joyce Carol Oates’s letters to her biographer and friend Greg Johnson, readers will discover a never-before-seen dimension of her phenomenal talent. Whereas her academic essays and book reviews are eloquent in a formal way, in these letters she is wholly relaxed, even when she is serious in her concerns. Like Johnson, she was always engaged in work, whether a long novel or a brief essay, and the letters give a fascinating glimpse into Oates’s writing practice. Joyce Carol Oates is the celebrated author of a number of works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She is the editor of "New Jersey Noir," "Prison Noir," and "Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers;" and a recipient of the National Book Award, the PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Humanities Medal, and a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey. "A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers" is her latest work. Steve Wasserman is the publisher of Heyday Books. He is a former editor-at-large for Yale University Press and editorial director of Times Books/Random House and publisher of Hill & Wang and The Noonday Press at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. A founder of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities at the University of Southern California, Wasserman was a principal architect of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books during the nine years he served as editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (1996–2005). He has written for many publications, including "The Village Voice," "Threepenny Review," "The Nation," "The New Republic," "The American Conservative," "The Progressive," "Columbia Journalism Review," "Los Angeles Times," and the "(London) Times Literary Supplement." Originally broadcast via Zoom on Thursday, March 18, 2024. Hosted by Peter Maravelis. Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation. citylights.com/foundation