“Joyce Carol Oates is the rarest of commodities, an author modest about her work,” wrote Robert Phillips in The Paris Review in 1978. Though she has since won the National Humanities Medal, been nominated for a Pulitzer, and written dozens more books and short stories (including one published in the magazine this week), she remains unusually self-effacing. When we visited her earlier this month, at her home in New Jersey, she told us, “I haven’t the faintest idea what my royalties are. I haven’t the faintest idea how many copies of books sold, or how many books that I’ve written. I could look these things up; I have no interest in them. I don’t know how much money I have. There are a lot of things I just don’t care about.”

She cares deeply about the activity of writing itself. She told us she “can basically write almost all day long, with interruptions.” In this video, Oates discusses writing, her daily routine, and her idea of her own personality.

Video by Kristina Budelis and Sky Dylan-Robbins.

Visit our new video hub, featuring profiles, commentary, and interviews including a profile of Gay Talese, an exploration of handcrafting doughnuts in Brooklyn, and a visit to a facility that breeds half-wild cats.