Famous writers with Cats: Joyce Carol Oates

Writers need inspiration somewhere in life, and for many that inspiration comes from their pet cats.

This is a running series where we post pictures of famous writers with their feline companions--the cute, the cuddly, the creepy. And that's just the writers.

Today:  Joyce Carol Oates

Even the Mr. Whiskers finds blindly staring out a window to be more entertaining than Joyce Carol Oates.

It's a pretty bad sign when the most animated thing in this photo is the wicker table.

Everything about this photo screams what was horribly, horribly wrong about the 1980s. Eyeglasses, wicker tables, Mr. Whisker's inability to step away from a free buffet of cat food--take your pick. He has about a half inch clearance before his belly is scraping off the floor.

It's that time of year again to start laying odds on the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Is money burning a hole in your pocket? Are you a degenerate gambler with a penchant for dropping some coin on awards out of Sweden? Good news then! It's Nobel Prize week, and this Thursday the Nobel in Literature will be announced.

But the real question is: Who to lay the hot money on?

Nicerodds.co.uk has collected the odds from various gambling websites, and the favorite isn't a household name in American households.

Svetlana Alexievich, a novelist and journalist out of Belarus, is the odds-on favorite at roughly 6-to-1.

Haruki Murakami is second at roughly 8-to-1.

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (8/1), Joyce Carol Oates (12/1), and Philip Roth (13/1) round out the top five favorites.

What does all this mean?

Some obscure Swedish writer none of us have ever heard of will win.