Joyce Carol Oates — American Novelist born on June 16, 1938,

Joyce Carol Oates is an American author. Oates published her first book in 1963 and has since published over 40 novels, as well as a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them, two O. Henry Awards, and the National Humanities Medal. Her novels Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde, and short story collections The Wheel of Love and Other Stories and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories were each nominated for the Pulitzer Prize... (wikipedia)

My role models were childless: Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, George Eliot, the Brontes.
Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.
I would suggest the widow do things the husband used to do, so he seems to be there with you. You will feel like just going to bed. It's so wonderful, going to bed.
Any kind of creative activity is likely to be stressful. The more anxiety, the more you feel that you are headed in the right direction. Easiness, relaxation, comfort - these are not conditions that usually accompany serious work.
When I was very little, four or five, I did comic strip drawings, so my first novel had no words. I couldn't write and thought adult handwriting was a mysterious scribble. When I was 14, my grandmother gave me a typewriter and I started writing in a different way.