Joyce Carol Oates' love for portraying the more horrific side of human nature, in conjunction with revealing the psychology of everything she can touch, makes her somewhat of an acquired taste. (That said, she is by far my favorite writer.) She teaches at Princeton and simultaneously cranks out a vast number of novels, short stories, poems, and plays.
Her novels:
(any help noding these would be greatly appreciated. it's a rather monstrous task and i've not even read more than 5 or so)
source: http://storm.usfca.edu/~southerr/jco.html