Joy Williams (American writer)

Joy Williams (American writer) Joy Williams (born February 11, 1944) is an American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and teacher of creative writing. She received in 1999 a Rea Award for the Short Story, was elected in 2008 a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was awarded in 2021 a Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Quotes In July of 1995, the Copa, along with the chic restaurant Antonia's, burnt to the ground in the traditional suspicious, middle-of-the-night fire. Built in 1917 as a movie theater, it had been wearily showing Deep Throat for a decade before it was transformed in the '80's into a glossy gay cruise bar. The Florida Keys: A History & Guide Random House 1996 9780679759348 https://books.google.com/books?id=X4jvlWS36KkC&q=gay+cruise++bar 166 (245 pages; 1st edition 1987) What would be the point to discuss the craft of Jean Rhys, Janet Frame, Christina Stead, Malcolm Lowry, all of whose works can teach us little about technique, and whose way of touching us is simply by exploding on the lintel of our minds. It is not technique that guided them. Their craft consisted of desire.We are American writers, absorbing the American experience. We must absorb its heat, the recklessness and ruthlessness, the grotesqueries and cruelties. We must reflect the sprawl and smallness of America, its greedy optimism and dangerous sentimentality. And we must write with a pen—in Mark Twain’s phrase—warmed up in hell. We might have something then, worthy, necessary; a real literature instead of the Botox escapist lit told in the shiny prolix comedic style that has come to define us. Joy Williams (American writer) Joy Williams as quoted by Paul Winner, Joy Williams, The Art of Fiction No. 223; Interviewed by Paul Winner issue 209 Summer 2014 The Paris Review https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6303/the-art-of-fiction-no-223-joy-williams Marilynne Robinson says she read Moby-Dick when she was nine. I wish I could say such a thing! I was reading horse books, dog books, the Baba Yaga stories in Jack and Jill (magazine) Jack and Jill magazine: my library card was my most treasured possession, but I didn’t read with much discrimination. Alex Clark (journalist) Alex Clark, Interview. American author Joy Williams: ‘The comfy story has got to change’ 19 October 2024 The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/oct/19/joy-williams-concerning-the-future-of-souls-99-stories-of-azrael External links Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Essayists from the United States Category:Novelists from the United States Category:Short story writers from the United States Category:Women authors from the United States Category:Women born in the 1940s