Joyce Carol Oates, a famous American writer was born on June 16th, 1938. She is daughter of Carolina Oates, a housewife and Frederic Oates, a manufacturing worker. She hails from an average rural lower middle class family that lived in Lockport, New York. She was raised as a Catholic, (though atheist today) in the working-class community of farmers in Millersport, New York describing it as happy, close and unusual family for the type of social and economic prevailing for them. Joyce was “very close” to her grandmother (father’s side). Blanche had concelead their Jeweish heritage since her father’s suicide from Joyce. Oates took inspiration from Blanche’s when she wrote The Gravedigger's Daughter in 2007. Joyce’s siblings are Fred Junior and Lynn Ann. Joyce’s sister is autistic.

Joyce Oates’ first book was published in 1963 and since then she has had more than fifty novels published along with various short-story collections, non-fiction and poetry which has gained her the repute of being prolific. Her novel titled them in1969 won her National Book Award, and her other novels What I Lived For in 1994, Black Water in1992 and Blonde in 2000 got Pulitzer Prize nominations. Oates is recognized widely as a leading novelist of USA from1960’s onwards. Joyce has also done some of her writings by the name of "Lauren Kelly." and "Rosamond Smith”.

With Shuddering Fall was the first novel written by Oates in1964. She was only 26 years of age when it was published. Where Are You Goin’, Where Have U Been? " came out in 1966. It was a condensed story written by her after she listened to Bob Dylan’s It's All Over, Baby Blue. It was the inspiration for the 1985 movie Smooth Talk. In 2008, Joyce In Oates opinion her most memorable work is Where Are You Goin’, Where Have U Been?

Oates's 1969 novel them got the National Book Award. Oate’s two books are published per year including many novels. Recurring topics of her works include sexual abuse, rural poverty, power struggle, class tensions, female early years and adolescence. At times the supernatural also. Violence has been portrayed in her novels so regularly that it has led Oates to write an essay to respond to the query, "Why Is There So Much Violence In Your Writing?”

When studying at Wisconsin-Madison University, Joyce met Raymond Smith, a fellow student, whom she went on to marry in 1961. Joyce Oates was a teacher in Beaumont area of Texas for one year after which she shifted to Detroit. She started teaching at Detroit University in 1962. Vietnam war, 1967 Detroit riots, and a job in 1968 influenced Oates to move to Canada for teaching at Windsor Universiy. In 1978, Oates shifted to Princeton to teach at the University.

For over 25 years, Oates is supposed to be a "favorite" to receive the Literature Nobel Prize by critics and betting people.

As in 2008, Oates is designated Professor in the Humanities section with the Creative Writing Program of Princeton University. She has taught there since 1978.