Why I think highly of Joyce Carol Oates

If you missed Joyce Carol Oates's moving and brave piece in the New Yorker about the death of her husband, Ray (?) Smith, you should go back and read it. As you'd expect, Oates writes unflinchingly about every aspect of the horrific week in which her husband took ill and unexpectedly died of complications - she tells us in a short space about their loving relationship, about illness, age, hospitals, grieving, excellent piercing observations and strange moments, the moments that take on a ghostly presence of their own in times of stress and tragedy: her car parked inexpertly and a note on the dash, learn to park, bitch; the call at midnight, just as she's thinking all would be OK, and her drive to the hospital, trying to get in, doors locked, arriving - too late! - and her guilt for, this time, driving so cautiously, and her husband's dying among strangers, and then her ability to turn away, to move forward through life - in part of course through writing, through writing this piece. Oates comes in for more than her share of envious mockery for her astounding output, and of course nobody can read all of her work (we learn here that even her husband didn't!) and you can't help but think that maybe she would be better or at least more appreciated if she wrote (or published) less - which is to say there are some gems among her novels and stories. I've never met Oates (and her husband rejected a # of my stories over time), but I think highly of her: many years ago, friend Seth Feldman published a story in a tiny Canadian lit mag, and out of nowhere Oates read the story and sent him an appreciative note. What a kind, thoughtful thing to do for a young writer!