Meeting Joyce Carol Oates

StokerCon 2025 is now two weeks behind me, and I now feel comfortable writing about what was, for me, my personal high point.

I was at the Joyce Carol Oates signing table, where she sat with writer and editor Rebecca Rowland (who is president of the Boston HWA chapter, and edited my story “Movie Call” for the anthology Generation X-Ed). As she signed my copies of Night-Side and Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque, she spotted my nametag and said, “Oh, are you a writer?”

My mind blanked.

Look, part of the reason I became interested in horror fiction was reading her story “The Bingo Master.” I picked up a copy of Night-Side almost immediately, and continued to read her work steadily. I’ve learned much by studying her work, though I’m hardly a completist. This was one of the great women of American letters acknowledging me as an actual writer.

“Oh, are you a writer?” My mind was bereft of a single thought. And then suddenly, my mouth made sounds, even as my brain waved at it and shouted, “Dude, don’t do that!”

“Uh,” I uhhed, “not a good one.”

And Rebecca Rowland proffered a kindness I can never repay.

She leaned to Ms. Oates’s ear and said, “He’s being extremely modest. He’s an outstanding writer.”

I managed to mouth a thank-you to her, then collected my books.

I was paid a compliment by an amazing writer and editor to Joyce Carol Oates. I’m going to live with that for a long time.