My first encounter with Joyce Carol Oates
It wouldn’t feel right for me to post about tonight’s event without first mentioning how I came to discover Joyce Carol Oates in the first place. I know, I know. She’s not exactly obscure. But, hey, everybody has to have a first time, right? So I’ll start off by testifying about mine.
It was the year 2000. Fall semester at Roosevelt University, to be exact. That was hands down the best semester of college for me. Four of my favorite courses taught by four of my favorite professors. I had my mind blown on a daily basis. It was like these professors got a fabulous academic choreographer to synch them up for maximum enlightenment.
One of the books assigned in my American Gothic Literature course was an anthology of short stories by Joyce Carol Oates entitled The Collector of Hearts: New Tales of the Grotesque. “The Sepulchre” had such a tremendous impact on me that I made four different copies of it so that I could write four different sets of notes in the margins. (I’m a bit anal retentive, as my little sister, Skiddle, likes to point out from time to time.) I wrote an essay about it called “The Crossroads,” because, at that point in my life, I understood the story to be about woman’s conflicting desires to preserve the past and move beyond it. (And, damn it, I can’t find that essay in any of my files!)
Not long after I turned in the assignment, my professor told me that Joyce Carol Oates would be speaking at Women and Children First. She also told me that I should go and share my essay with the author. This is not something I would have ever thought to do on my own. But my professor suggested it and I didn’t think my debilitating shyness should keep me from simply listening to a reading, waiting in line, delivering a package, and saying a few words of praise and appreciation. I remember having to talk myself into this.
I won’t describe the reading here, because, after all, these posts are supposed to be about this year’s Story Week. But I will admit that I couldn’t bring myself to say a single word to Ms. Oates. I choked. I was completely star struck. I felt myself growing red and feverish as I approached the front of the line and, once there, I could do nothing more than fling my manila envelope in her general direction and make a very, very speedy exit.
A couple weeks later, I got a postcard from Joyce Carol Oates. It’s one of my most prized possessions.
More to come after the event…
