Remembering Ray Smith

"For those who knew Ray, however, his personal qualities are what will most be missed. On a couple of occasions I 'house-sat' for Ray and Joyce when they went on a rare extended trip, and what most stays in my memory is Ray showing me how to care for their two cats, their canary, and their plants. No detail was too small for him to discuss, and it struck me that he was a naturally nurturing person, whether dealing with animals, his garden, his authors, his friends, or his wife."

—Greg Johnson

Full Text of "Remembering Ray Smith"

On Editing The Ontario Review

"I see editing a magazine not as compiling but creating, and the finished product as a work of art in its own right .... the editor, for better or worse, contributes (no matter how little) to the shaping of a culture. He need not, and perhaps should not, be doctrinaire; nevertheless, he will have values—aesthetic, cultural, even moral, that will be reflected in what he chooses to publish."

—Raymond J. Smith

Full Text of "On Editing The Ontario Review"

Oates' husband was quiet voice

"... he worked behind the scenes on the magazine, and as Oates' protector and shield, her sounding board and soul mate."

—Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune

Full Text of "Oates' husband was quiet voice"

Nighthawk: A Memoir of Lost Time

"On Henry Street lived the man I would marry, by what concatenation of chance and fate I would never comprehend, in January 1961. So soon! He lived on the ground floor of a shabby wood-frame house, in a single-room flat with its own entrance, and crowded with books, journals, papers (he was completing his Ph.D. in eighteenth-century English literature, writing a dissertation on Jonathan Swift under the direction of the eminent scholar Ricardo Quintana); this flat in which, most evenings, we prepared and ate supper together...."

"And I was in love, and loved! I wasn't one to torment myself with the riddle He loves me. His love is predicated upon not exactly knowing me. Am I morally obliged to enlighten him?"

Full Text of "Nighthawk"

from the Journal

"Ray is a center ... kindly, loving, sweet, at times critically intelligent, sensitive, funny, unambitious, w/a love for idleness that matches my own, Ray is an extraordinary person whose depths are not immediately obvious ..."

The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982