Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind

Playwright, poet, novelist, and teacher, Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific figures of American contemporary literature. From her childhood 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, as well her keen interest in social justice.

Raised as Catholic, she discovered later in life that her grandmother was a Jew who fled Germany and kept her identity hidden. 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 grandmother and Jewish heritage, and her deep affection and appreciation of all things feline.