Joyce Carol Oates Visits Kelly Writers House

Joyce Carol Oates famous author,poet and play write visited the Kelly Writers house at the University of Pennsylvania. As part of the Writers House Fellow Program students get to study 3 famous writers. Then get to meet them for a reading and a question and answer session.

This week Joyce Carol Oates came and read from four of her pieces. She answered the students questions and sign books for the students, faculty and public. The author has over 60 writings to her credit and is one of the most prolific and well read authors of our time.The Writers House Fellow Program

The program is actually a class offered through the creative writing department of the University of Pennsylvania. The students read portions of famous writers of distinction then do a complete detailed study of their writings and style. After they are completely knowledgeable the works of each author they get to actually meet with each author as a group. They ask questions ,listen to readings, complete their studies and give these authors of distinction a gift

The program started in 1999 with a gift from Paul Kelly.

The session with Ms. Oates was video taped and will be available for those interested on the Writers House website (http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/). Ms. Oates was the first author to visit this semester and will be followed by Poet Susan Howe in March and Screenwriter/Producer David Milch in April.

The students are in for a great semester with these three artist.Joyce Carol Oates Visits Kelly's Writers House

It was reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian that Ms. Oates read two poems. The first "Visionary Adventures of a Wild Dog Pack" then "Report to an Academy After Kafka". Further readings were from her short-stories "Good to Know You" and "The Knife".

As an act of thanks the students normally give a gift to commemorate the artist visit. Ms. Oates will receive a "cat quilt" in reference to cats which appear routinely in her works. Due to the recent storm they were unable to get the gift delivered on time.

Its so encouraging to see students get hands on knowledge from great American authors in conjunction with their studies. The University of Pennsylvania has indeed achieved a great milestone of modern education techniques to motivate students in their studies.