Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm San Francisco, so welcome to the show. Today we are joined by author Joyce Carol Oates. She's published 62 novels and

47 short story collections including her latest entitled Zero Sum.

It's a potent collection of really unsettling stories

where characters navigate a mix of erotic obsession

and thwarted idealism all while playing for lethal stakes.

You can find Zero Sum at your local bookstore, audible, or wherever you get your books. I sat with Joyce last summer at her home in New Jersey

around her novel babysitter, which was actually recently released in paperback.

We talked about her upbringing,

her early literary influences,

her fascination with examining violence,

her rocky relationship to Twitter,

and why she continues to write each and every day.

Whether you've heard this episode before or it's your first time hearing it, let me set the

scene.

We taped this episode in her living room as her cats encircled us on a very, very hot summer day.

And you know, before we started recording as I was setting up the microphones kind of fumbling about I noticed Joyce looking off into the distance

staring out the window into her backyard she seemed to be in between a couple thoughts. I couldn't quite place them and she wasn't saying much of anything.

And so I figured once I pressed record that we start there. And so we did.

This is Joyce Carroll Oates. We're ready? Yes. Before we're getting started you were looking off into the distance here.

What were you thinking about? I mean one's mind is wandering around. I have many things I think about but what were you thinking about?

I was thinking I want to get through these tech hurdles. Oh, okay.

So that we can talk. Okay. Well, I think of an interview is sort of a genre of fiction. I guess that's very popular.

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