Published: October 17, 2009 04:30 am      

CITY OF LOCKPORT: Noted author Joyce Carol Oates returns to hometown

BY LINDSAY SCHWAB

Special to the US&J

Literature lovers filed into the Historic Palace Theatre on Friday night to take part in an evening with Lockport’s own nationally esteemed author, Joyce Carol Oates.

Oates returned to her hometown for the first time in nearly 50 years as the first speaker in the John S. Koplas Memorial Lecture Series. Her appearance was deemed the “inaugural lecture,” by Lockport Public Library Director Marie Bindeman.

“I’m personally so excited we’re able to offer this to the community,” Bindeman said.

The revered author of more than 70 books — including novels, short story collections and poetry — was happy to be back in her hometown again. “I’m so thrilled to be here,” Oates said. “I’m really amazed.”

Showing her appreciation for the town that cultivated her beginning as a writer, Oates

read some of her recent work about her memories from in and around the Lockport area. Although Lockport never made an appearance, itself, in any of her novels, Oates made it clear that her memories and time here are infused into the essence of her novels.

Oates expressed her memories of Lockport very vividly and attributed this to her childhood, when she would walk around the city. She described her wanderings as, “a solitary individual walking,” and went on to say how her childhood experiences here always stayed with her.

She remembers her classmates when she attended John E. Pound Elementary and North Park junior high, saying that she can see where they would be sitting in the classroom. Oates also said the characteristics and memories she has about her classmates have influenced her writing and have been integrated in bits and pieces throughout her work.

Her writing is strongly connected with her sense of place. Water is a theme that runs throughout her novels, and she connects this with the waterways she grew up with — mainly the Erie Canal and the Tonawanda Creek.

As a child, growing up on Millersport Highway, Oates’ family did not own many books, so she frequented the Lockport Public Library. “I was mesmerized by books,” Oates said. She went on to speak about the smell and feel of the library and how it illuminated her life. After driving by the building Thursday afternoon, she said that it looks the same as she remembers it.

When people ask Oates why her writing is so dark, she responds, “Have you ever visited Lockport?” This gave the audience a laugh, and she did say that she likes the city’s timeliness even through change.

During her 25-year writing career Oates has received many literary honors. She won the National Book Award for her novel “them,” the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in short fiction, the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy Institute of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2004 Fairfax Prize for lifetime achievement in the literary arts, among many others.

The Koplas family, along with the Lockport Public Library, were thrilled to have Oates as the first speaker in the series. John Koplas began a unique relationship with Oates after he discovered that her parents were taking the classes he was teaching at the Kenan Center. Ironically in many of these classes he taught about Oates’ work. “He followed her work very closely,” Koplas son, Jeffery, said.

Over the years, Koplas’ relationship with Oates developed with an exchange of letters. According to Jeffery Koplas, his father did not use e-mail to communicate, but he rather enjoyed hand-writing letters. John Koplas died last year.

Bindeman and the Koplas family, are hoping to make the lecture series an annual event. Individuals interested in donating to the John S. Koplas fund are asked to contact the Lockport Public Library.

“I’m hoping the fund will be able to sustain the lecture series that will feature authors and artists,” Bindeman said.