Prolific novelist and tweeter Joyce Carol Oates sent the dinosaur-loving literary community into a lather when she retweeted a photo of director Steven Spielberg in a photograph with a sadly deceased triceratops from the original Jurassic Park film, with the comment, “So barbaric that this should still be allowed,†prompting everyone to wonder if she had any idea that dinosaurs have been extinct for millennia.
You guys: She’s Joyce Carol Oates. “Just have no idea about this,†she wrote in an email to Newsweek. “The Internet & Twitter are filled with jokes. Why is this so unusual?†She continued:
it was meant as a joke…. Â
many of my tweets are meant to be funny; but I guess that is not always a good idea.
when you’d originally written, I could not open the link & really had no idea what you meant.  now I remember.  sorry!
Joyce
The reporter then thanked Oates for clearing up the situation, to which she replied with a blank email, which is funnier than a photo of ten dead dinosaurs.