murdered, and the whiteured leaders -- like woodrow wilson and many others -- just would not say anything about it.t they wouldn't come outag courageously to criticize it. they wouldn't do anything. it was, basically, that they, you know, see no evil, hear noee evil and say no evil. that sort of thing. of so i thought there was a curse on the white race, basically. >> host: and upton sinclair's in your book.ost: >> guest: upton sinclair was 26t years old. he represents a younger generation. he sort of rises in the rise in interest and equality among the races and sexes. the novel's also about women's rights and women acquiring the vote. >> host: and jack london and grover cleveland are also in "the accursed." >> guest: yes. jack london is a friend of upton sinclair, and they're both socialists. >>e

>> host: where do you get your p ideas? >> guest: i came to live at princeton, and i perceived in the biographies a portrait of a person much different from the m sort of received notion of woodrow wilson as this model person. i saw that he had many flaws, and i saw that hismany self-righteousness, his saw rectitude, his condescension toward negroes, he called black people negroes and toward women, i thought really needed to be examined. >> host: joyce carol oates, do you have any idea how many books you've sold? >> guest: no, i don't have idea. >> host: do you have any idea how many awards you've won? >> guest: no. i don't sit around counting i them. i don't. >> host: how do you write? what's your writing process? >> guest: i try to write very early in the morning, and ini basically love to write. to me, it's very exciting. rig i feel i'm organizing thoughts that may be incoherent andt

chaotic and funneling them, and i like to create dramatic scenes. that novel has a lot of exposition and history, but basically each chapter is a dramatic scene, and often it's a conversation between people and something really happens, and at the end of the chapter, there's an ending. and then there's something else, and there's a beginning. and when the novel ends, it really ends. there's a resolution, and the mystery is solved in the last pages. >> host: has your writing changed in the last 40 years? >> guest: my writing's changed a lot. when i first began writing, i had long paragraphs of narrative exposition, so describing things. now i have much more people talking, much more dialogue. i may have idiomatic monologuese people talking. i try to evoke the voices ofe, people rather than my own voice. >> host: write longhand,oi computer? >> guest: i start off in longhand, and i like to write,

and then ing go to the computer and organize.y computer is perfect for organizing and moving chapters and paragraphs around and positioning and repositioning. that's perfect. >> host: do you save your drafts? >> guest: i save many of my drafts, yes. i do. my archives are at syracuse university, and they're mammoth. it's like the grand canyon, youv know? it's filled with all this paper. >> host: now, why are your archives at syracuse when you teach at princeton?i >> guest: syracuse is where ih graduated. and my bas from syracuse. >> host: how long have you been at princeton university? >> guest: since 1978. >> host: are you teaching this semester? >> guest: i'm teaching at this very minute. i'll be teaching in a couple days, yes. >> host: and what are you teaching? >> >> guest: i'm teaching two writing workshops and i have two students i advise for theses.

>> host: now, do you pick these students? >> guest: some extent, they apply to a program.ram >> host: on a first day of class in a joyce carol oates class, what do you assign? >> guest: oh, the first day of class we may go over in great detail a short story, a classic story the, a hemingway story. i mean, line by line, almost word by word, a story maybe two pages long. and we go over it care friday was i want them to -- carefullyl because i want them to see how it's written. so the ore day which was like at couple weeks ago we did a ray carver story, and we spent about an hour on the story.er so that's the first class. >> host: do you enjoy teaching? >> guest: oh, yes, very much.a yes. >> host: why? >> guest: well, the students are very interesting, and their writing is often engaging and original, and i love going over hemingway, let's say, or faulkner or james joyce,

checkoff. i love going over really good gi prose when we're appreciating it. as i said, it's something likeai poetry. really good prose is written so carefully that with a number of sensitive young people to go lu this and see -- go through thish and see how well it's written, it's really a pleasure. >> host: is writing hard work? >> guest: writing can sometimes> be hard work. it can sometimes with be fluent. you know, it's like mozart created music that sort of came into his head, and other composers revise a little more. one maybe is almost too easy if it just comes in your head and you don't have to revise.m i like to have a first draft, yo and then i revise it.ft >> host: and if someone were to pick up one of your books and said -- which one of your bookso should i read, what would youour say? >> guest: that depends completely on who you are because i have mammoth, long novels. marilyn monroe must be 800 pager long, and the accursed is about

800 pages long or 600. but zombie is a novella, it's only about 140 pages. so if you like short work, then i have a novel called "rape: ae love story," a novella, and that's very short. >> host: joyce carol oates. her most recent book, "the accursed." this is booktv on c-span2. >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> here are some of the books published in 2006. booktv's ninth year on c-span2. james swanson's account of the assassination of president lincoln, "manhunt," was released

that year as well as madeleine albright's reflections on the role of religion in world affairs, "the mighty and almighty." a sheave shay rinse, "imperial life in the emerald city." and juan williams gave his thoughts on issues that african-americans face in his book, "enough." >> there was a villain at the door, and we had to address it, and sometimes that villain was dressed in a white hood, michael. >> uh-huh. >> so now we come to a point we're at a different moment in american history. we have a stronger, more affluent, better educated black america, and yet we are at a point -- and this is where i say cosby was the bell ringer, and he is to be absolutely be heralded by our community for what he did that day -- he is saying you have a strong community, and yet what about our brothers who are not coming with us at a moment when american society is suffering a greater and greater class division? >> no question. >> why is it that we have still

25% of our brothers and sisters living in poverty, and how can we speak to them, because the devil at the tour -- >> right. >> -- the wolf that is threatening us at this moment now becomes a matter of an internal threat. the internal threat is 50% dropout rate, even higher for our black and hispanic boys. the threat is -- this is unbelievable d70% of our children born out of wedlock? which means not just, it's not a matter of, oh, you know, morality. >> right. >> this means the mother is at threat putting herself, limiting her ability to move forward with her aspirations, and the child, she's not in position to give attention, to raise that child in the way that child needs to become a fully strong, educated, functional adult. >> visit booktv.org to watch more programs from the last 15 years, and continue. watching booktv all weekend long for more nonfiction authors and books. >> i think that women are

getting a very complex message. i mean, we're in the middle of a sociological revolution. young women are told that they have to have a great career, they have to be great mothers, they have to be thin, they have to be good looking, they have to manage a house well. and there is a sense of entitlement, i can do everything that a young man does. that includes having a glass of wine or two after work. drinking to wind down. and women tend to medicate depression, anxiety and loneliness. i think there's a lot of anxiety in this generation in terms of how do i manage it all, and so when we look at who is drinking the most, we're seeing the professional women, the educated women. and i don't think this is what gloria steinem had in mind. >> ann dowsett johnston on the closing gender gap in the world of risky drinking, tonight on "after words" part of booktv

this weekend on c-span2. plus right now online at our booktv book club, join other viewers reading "walking in the wind." see what others are saying and post your own comments. find out more at booktv.org/bookclub. .. >> hello, everyone. my name is chuck beard, i'm the sole proprietor and sole staff member at nashville's all local bookstore in east nashville. i'm truly honored and excited to introduce our next featured writer. she is a