Award-winning writer Joyce Carol Oates has no fear of the notorious ‘blank page’, as she simply never faces it: “By the time I come to a blank page, I have many, many things to say.” Find out why in this video.

Oates likes to run or walk in solitude, and this is where she thinks about the things she later writes, being a firm believer that the trick is to do a lot of thinking before commencing the actual writing. As a consequence, the blank page is already full when she sits down to write.

Joyce Carol Oates (b. 1938) is an award-winning American author, who has published a large number of novels, plays, novellas, short stories, poetry and nonfiction. Among her books are ‘them’ (1969), ‘Black Water’ (1992), ‘Demon and other tales’ (1996), ‘Blonde’ (2000), ‘The Falls’ (2004), ‘Black Dahlia & White Rose’ (2012) and ‘The Accursed’ (2013), which writer Stephen King described as “the world’s first postmodern Gothic novel.” She has won the National Book Award (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal (2010), the Norman Mailer Prize (2012) and many more. Three of her novels, ‘Black Water’ (1992), ‘What I Lived For’ (1994) and ‘Blonde’ (2000), have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Joyce Carol Oates was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg in connection to the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in August 2014.

Camera: Mathias Nyholm

Edited and produced by: Kasper Bech Dyg    

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2015

Supported by Nordea-fonden