An Evening with Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates comes to the UMKC Student Union, Room 401 on Friday, November 20, for a conversation about her career and her latest work. She'll be joined by Whitney Terrell, an Associate Professor of English at UMKC and author of The Good Lieutenant, which was named a best book of 2016 by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Refinery 29. Together they'll talk through Oates' long body of work, with a focus on two of her most recent books: the short story collection The Frenzy and the novel Fox.

Oates has published dozens of novels and stories over the years. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? and Blonde were both adapted into films, and she's picked up the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Award, two O. Henry Prizes, and two Bram Stoker Awards along the way. She teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley and Princeton and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The evening is part of the Writers for Readers fundraising banquet, a partnership between the Kansas City Public Library and the UMKC MFA program in creative writing and media arts. During the night, they'll also announce the winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award, a national honor established in 2020 that comes with a $10,000 stipend.

It runs from 6:00 to 8:30 PM, with doors opening at 5:30 PM. Tickets are $100, and the venue is the UMKC Student Union, Room 401, 5100 Cherry St., Kansas City, MO 64110.