Joyce Carol Oates: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

I read in the news yesterday that television writers here in the U.S. have gone on strike, and that because of the strike, everybody's arms are collectively thrown up in a great wide panic, because nobody knows what's going to happen on Charmed and because there's nobody to script the next great Wardrobe Malfunction, and this sounds like very bad news indeed and I was sorry to read it. Genuinely so, and not because of an audience's deprivation, nor out of concern for people fortunate enough to make their means by slinging a pen (although I do!), nor out of personal political predilections about labor of the organized variety (though I have them!) but because it's sad to think about all those characters in limbo (who knew Pirandello would prove the portent?) hanging off cliffs and otherwise unresolved.

But so, more helpful might be to present alternative programming. And, well, I happen to be able to help there. For the characters among you, hang in there.