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5 Quotes from Joyce Carol Oates’ “Faith of a Writer”
And one sleep-deprived wanna-be novelist’s reflections on them.
Joyce Carol Oates is an incredible writer of literary fiction. She’s written 58 novels so far, she’s won piles of awards, and she’s incredibly active on Twitter/X. I’m currently working my way through her impressively lengthy novel Blonde about Marilyn Monroe. Amid the many hats she wears, she’s been an Artist-in-Residence at NYU, and has given many readings at the Lilian Vernon House over the years.
I just recently graduated from NYU’s low-residency MFA, but since I live in Brooklyn, I attend the reading series as often as possible. She’s so well known in the NYU writing community that we call her JCO. I attended her reading of Blonde and loved hearing about her writing process during the Q&A after the reading.
Not long after, I was assigned The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art as a part of my reading list in my first semester of the program. I’ve picked through craft books before, but as you might guess from JCO’s prolific writing career, her book on the topic is phenomenal. I’m going to share a few quotes from the book that have particularly stuck with me.
“Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject. Your ‘forbidden’ passions are likely to…
