Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly In 12 short thematic essays and an interview, all previously published, the hyper-prolific author of novels (Blonde), story collections (Faithless), plays (In Darkest America) and poems (Tenderness) examines the writing life, aiming to focus on "the process of writing more than the uneasy, uncertain position of being a writer." Oates advises young writers to read widely, takes a nostalgic glance back at childhood influences, waxes poetic on the joys of running and its relation to writing, and tackles the inner trajectories of the creative process. The essays are peppered with anecdotes concerning writers' trials, doubts and influences; these well-selected snippets form the most enjoyable and illuminating aspect of the book. If Oates's own insights don't always live up to the wit and beauty of such quoted authors as T.S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence, it may be because she gives herself comparatively little room to wrestle with such broad concepts as inspiration and failure. Oates's suggestion that writers as a breed apart may irritate the "ordinary reader" she refers to (whom, she suggests, might not know that "no story writes itself") and may even make writers uncomfortable (to write, she says, is to "invite angry censure from those who don't write, or who don't write in quite the way you do....Art by its nature is a transgressive act, and artists must accept being punished for it"). But Oates obviously understands the faith that writing, that "juncture of private vision and the wish to create a communal, public vision" takes, and young writers especially may find words of wisdom here. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Few can match Oates in the breadth, depth, and passion of her literary experiences and expertise. In her newest and most confiding essay collection, she generously shares the private side of her story-steeped life, musing over the one-room schoolhouse in rural New York State she so loved, the now cellular influence of Alice in Wonderland, and the nearly symbiotic connection between running and writing ("Joyce runs like a deer!" she recalls a boy exclaiming, a memory not as benign as it might seem, given the brute intentions of her pursuers). Art is a mystery, born most often of pain, Oates attests as she shrewdly and beguilingly dissects the quirkiness of inspiration and the unexpected felicity of failure, the enigma of the imagination and the necessity of craft. Gloriously well read and unfailingly curious about those who have shared her obsession, most notably Woolf, Lawrence, James, and Faulkner, Oates is commanding in her knowledge and deeply moving in her candor, such as when she notes that people always ask how she writes so much, rather than why. Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved From the Back Cover A tribute to the brilliant craftsmanship of one of our most distinguished writers, providing valuable insight into her inspiration and her method Joyce Carol Oates is widely regarded as one of America's greatest contemporary literary figures. Having written in a number of genres -- prose, poetry, personal and critical essays, as well as plays -- she is an artist ideally suited to answer essential questions about what makes a story striking, a novel come alive, a writer an artist as well as a craftsman. In The Faith of a Writer, Oates discusses the subjects most important to the narrative craft, touching on topics such as inspiration, memory, self-criticism, and "the unique power of the unconscious." On a more personal note, she speaks of childhood inspirations, offers advice to young writers, and discusses the wildly varying states of mind of a writer at work. Oates also pays homage to those she calls her "significant predecessors" and discusses the importance of reading in the life of a writer. Oates claims, "Inspiration and energy and even genius are rarely enough to make 'art': for prose fiction is also a craft, and craft must be learned, whether by accident or design." In fourteen succinct chapters, The Faith of a Writer provides valuable lessons on how language, ideas, and experience are assembled to create art. About the Author Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978. Read more