How Joyce Carol Oates Does It - And the Line Between Fiction and Reality

 If anyone searches this blog for Joyce Carol Oates, they will find many references. She opened my eyes, she amazes me.

Jesse Lee Kercheval's Talking to Joyce Carol Oates on the Way to the Airport About Fiction’s Blurry Borders may answer my question of how Ms. Oates writes so much:

Once I had to give Joyce Carol Oates, who’d read at the university where I taught, a ride to the airport. As I drove, we talked, but she also had a yellow legal pad open on her knee, writing. I remember thinking she was taking notes, that maybe the right way to be sure you knew what had really happened in your life was to write it down. But when we stopped for a red light, I peeked at the pad and what she was writing had nothing to do with the drive or our conversation. It seemed to be part of story. I thought, So that is how she writes so many books! I decided she had an unusual brain. 

I endorse the last sentence without having met Ms. Oates.

As for fiction's fuzzy borders, that is actually Ms. Kercheval's story and should be read in full. She is a delight in her own way.

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