Angie’s recap:

On Tuesday night (just in time before our latest snowstorm hit) a large group of Central Minnesotan readers and book lovers gathered in the Escher Auditorium at the College of St. Ben’s to hear from distinguished author Joyce Carol Oates.

I was very excited to hear from her, especially because of the enormous body of work she’s created! We enjoyed hearing about the similarities between her hometown in upstate New York and Central Minnesota, mainly that they both get a lot of snow. She shared that she was first in her family to graduate high school and that getting a college degree was extremely rare, especially for a woman. She talked a lot about the changing roles in society for women and girls and how important it is for everyone to have access to education and to travel.

She read from a few different selections. Her first reading was about “Mr. Rooster” and the impact that caring for her family’s chickens had on her as a young girl. She said that caring for the rooster, in particular, was a learning experience that stuck with her throughout life. Some people just aren’t going to like us, no matter what we do! She had a quiet sense of humor and shared several pictures of roosters with us, just in case we needed a reminder of what they looked like. 🙂

Next she talked about behavioral psychology and the experiments that used to be conducted before there were ethical guidelines scientists needed to follow. She read from a poem she’d written about “Little Albert,” a real-life baby test subject.

She also talked about her latest book, The Hazards of Time Travel, and read a few small selections from the book. Finally, she answered audience questions. I found what she had to say about Twitter very interesting, especially since she’s been a Twitter user since the platform began.

It was so great to see so many members and other library people at this event! Thanks to St. Ben’s for providing a lovely evening!

Lydia’s recap:

What a great opportunity to be able to see such a distinguished author here so close to home. I love going to see authors when I get the chance and Joyce Carol Oates gave an excellent talk.

She is such an articulate speaker, which makes sense for someone who has published over one hundred books.

Her readings were excellent but I loved the way she would digress from her prepared material and speak extemporaneously about our current time and political situation, the changes she has seen since she began writing and her thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. Often times authors will just stand and read but she jumped around and commented on her work as she went which I found really interesting.

The theater was wonderful and I was lucky enough to have a great seat near the front and right in the middle so I really had a wonderful time and I hope that we can attract more and more great talent to visit us here in central Minnesota. I hope Ms. Oates wasn’t delayed by the storm but hopefully those in line to get books signed were able to. I always enjoy visiting St Ben’s and I have seen many great performances and presentations there.