Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release                                   May 18, 1999							

Acclaimed Author Joyce Carol Oates Conducts Reading at Lawrence Convocation
 

          APPLETON, WIS. -- Award-winning novelist, poet and literary critic
Joyce Carol Oates will conduct a reading of her works Thursday, May 27 at
Lawrence University's Honors Convocation.  Oates will deliver a reading and
personal commentary at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.  She also
will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of
the Lawrence Memorial Union.  Both events are free and open to the public.
     The Honors Convocation, the last in the 1998-99 convocation series,
recognizes students for outstanding academic achievement and community
service.
     Hailed as "one of the greatest writers of our time" by novelist John
Gardner, Oates, 60, published her first collection of short stories in 1963
and has since established herself as one of America's most prolific and
versatile writers, averaging nearly two books per year. 
     The author of more than two dozen novels, her works encompass a wide
variety of historical settings and literary genres, from children's
literature to Gothic.  Oates' writing frequently blends realistic treatment
of everyday life with horrific and even sensational depictions of violence.
Much of her work looks at ordinary families who experience common yet
intense emotions and relationships and whose lives frequently end in
bloodshed and self-destruction as a result of forces beyond their control.
     Oates voluminous body of work also includes mysteries -- written under
the pseudonym Rosamond Smith -- plays, essays, poetry, and literary
criticism.  Among her most recent works are the 1998 children's book, "Come
Meet Muffin," and the tragic novel, "My Heart Laid Bare," published last
summer. 
     The recipient of numerous literary awards, Oates first drew national
attention while still a student at Syracuse University, winning Mademoiselle
magazine's national fiction contest in 1959.  She received the 1970 National
Book Award for her novel "Them," was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in
1992 for "Black Water" and last year was presented the F. Scott Fitzgerald
Award for lifetime achievement in American literature. 
     Oates was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship in 1967 and the
following year received the National Institute of Arts and Letters'
Rosenthal Award for her novel "A Garden of Earthly Delights."
     Born in upstate New York and the product of a one-room elementary
school, Oates earned a bachelor's degree in English from Syracuse University
in 1960 and a master's degree of fine arts from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1961.  
She taught English at the University of Detroit from 1961-67 and at the
University of Windsor, Ontario, from 1967-78.  She joined the faculty at
Princeton University in 1978, where she continues to teach in the creative
writing department as the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the
Humanities.