Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind

Author Joyce Carol Oates provides rare insight into her life, creative process, and the events that have shaped her writings, including the 1967 Detroit Riot, the Chappaquiddick incident, and the tragic life of Marilyn Monroe.

Playwright, poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher, Joyce Carol Oates is one of the foremost, and inarguably, most prolific figures of American contemporary literature. From her hardscrabble beginnings on a farm, through her difficult childhood and notable university career, the notoriously reclusive Oates speaks to the formative personal and cultural shifts that shaped her distinct aesthetic and moral compass, as well her keen interest in social justice. After nine years of prodding, friend and documentarian Stig Bjorkman is granted unprecedented access into her life and studio—her relationship with her second husband, her longhand writing routines, her beloved Jewish grandmother, and her deep affection and appreciation of all things feline.