11 Chuen
Blue Spectral
Monkey
Light plays
Upon a vast and
rhythmic Sea –
Waves demonstrate
Diversity within Unity
Spectral Magic
On the Rise –
Elementals organize
–
Power doubles
Paradox reflects
Eternity
The Beginning ends –
The End begins again.
©Kleomichele Leeds
Roxane Gay, PhD
Roxane Gay (born October 15, 1974) is an American writer, professor, editor, and commentator. She is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).
Gay is an associate professor of English at Purdue University, contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, and co-editor of PANK, a nonprofit literary arts collective.
Early life and education
Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a family of Haitian descent. She attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Gay began her undergraduate studies at Yale University but dropped out in her junior year to pursue a relationship in Arizona. She later completed her undergraduate degree in Nebraska and also earned an MA with an emphasis in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. In 2010, Gay received a PhD in Rhetoric and Technical Communication from Michigan Technological University; her dissertation was titled Subverting the Subject Position: Toward a New Discourse About Students as Writers and Engineering Students as Technical Communicators. Dr. Ann Brady served as her dissertation adviser.
Career
After completing her PhD, Gay began her academic teaching career in the fall 2010 at Eastern Illinois University, where she was assistant professor of English. While at EIU, in addition to her teaching duties, she was a contributing editor for Bluestem magazine and she also founded Tiny Hardcore Press. Gay worked at Eastern Illinois University until the end of the 2013–14 academic year, taking a job in August 2014 at Purdue University as associate professor of creative writing.
Gay published a short story collection Ayiti (2011), then two books in 2014: the novel An Untamed State and the essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), leading one Time Magazine reviewer to declare, "Let this be the year of Roxane Gay." The review noted of her inclusive style: "Gay’s writing is simple and direct, but never cold or sterile. She directly confronts complex issues of identity and privilege, but it’s always accessible and insightful."
Main article: An Untamed State
In 2014, Gay published her debut novel, An Untamed State, which centers around Mireille Duval Jameson, a Haitian-American woman who is kidnapped for ransom. The novel explores the interconnected themes of race, privilege, sexual violence, family, and the immigrant experience. An Untamed State is often referred to as a fairy tale because of its structure and style, especially in reference to the opening sentence, "Once upon a time, in a far-off land, I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones," and the author's exploration of the American dream and courtship of Mireille's parents.
The novel received critical acclaim, with The Guardian review by Attica Locke calling it "a breathtaking debut novel" and The Washington Post crediting it as "a smart, searing novel."
Bad Feminist
Main article: Bad Feminist
Gay's collection of essays, Bad Feminist, was released in 2014 to widespread acclaim; it addresses both cultural and political issues, and became a New York Times best-seller. A Time magazine reviewer dubbed Bad Feminist "a manual on how to be human" and called Gay the "gift that keeps on giving." In a 2014 interview with the magazine, Gay explained her role as a feminist and how it has influenced her writing: "In each of these essays, I’m very much trying to show how feminism influences my life for better or worse. It just shows what it’s like to move through the world as a woman. It’s not even about feminism per se, it’s about humanity and empathy."
In The Guardian, critic Kira Cochrane offered a similar assessment, "While online discourse is often characterised by extreme, polarised opinions, her writing is distinct for being subtle and discursive, with an ability to see around corners, to recognise other points of view while carefully advancing her own. In print, on Twitter and in person, Gay has the voice of the friend you call first for advice, calm and sane as well as funny, someone who has seen a lot and takes no prisoners."
A group of feminist scholars and activists analyzed Gay's Bad Feminist for "Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism," an initiative of the feminist journal Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.
World of Wakanda
Main article: World of Wakanda
In July 2016, Gay and poet Yona Harvey were announced as writers for Marvel Comics' World of Wakanda, a spin-off from the company's Black Panther title, making them the first black women to be lead writers for Marvel.
Black Panther: World of Wakanda was hailed for its prominent portrayal of LGBTQ characters.The comic followed the journey of two lovers Aneka and Ayo, who are former members of the Dora Milaje, the Black Panther's female security force. The series follows the pair through multiple events, including the siege of their city by Thanos and the flooding of Wakanda by Namor.
The series' cancellation was confirmed in June 2017 by Gay, coming just two days after the premiere of the trailer for the Black Panther movie. The last issue released in March 2017. Marvel stated no official reason for the cancellation, however, feminist tech site The Mary Sue pointed to a connection with Marvel's knock against "diversity titles" and the Marvel VP David Gabriel's statement that "people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales."
Difficult Women
Main article: Difficult Women (book)
In 2017, Gay published Difficult Women, a collection of fictional short stories that highlight women who have lives that differ from society’s spectrum of a normal life. Each story follows a different character and her journey through either a traumatic experience or what makes her different from societal norms. The women are seen as "difficult" because they push the boundaries of society's portrayal of the perfect woman.
Not That Bad
Gay was the editor of an essay anthology entitled Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture. The collection, published in 2018 by HarperCollins, features essays from Gay and 30 other authors, including actresses Ally Sheedy and Gabrielle Union.
Other projects
Gay was the editor of The Butter, an online feminist writing site and sister site to The Toast, from November 2014 to August 2015. The Butter featured writing on a wide variety of subjects, including disability, literature, family, music, among others. The Butter ceased publishing in August 2015 with Gay stating she was "simply stretched too thin."
Gay was the guest judge and guest editor of The Masters Review annual fiction anthology in 2017.
Gay was featured in a five-minute segment of This American Life on June 17, 2016, talking about her body, and how she is perceived as a fat person.
Gay has a forthcoming book, How to Be Heard, originally set to be published in 2018 by TED Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. However, in January 2017 Gay announced she was pulling the book from Simon & Schuster due to her objections to alt-right journalist Milo Yiannopoulos receiving a book deal from another Simon & Schuster imprint.
She also edited the book Girl Crush: Women's Erotic Fantasies. In addition to her regular contributions to Salon and the now defunct HTMLGiant, her writing has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation and The New York Times Book Review.
Roxane Gay was featured in the 2016 book In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs.
On February 22, 2018, on Twitter, Gay offered to write Batgirl after the departure of Joss Whedon, who stepped down as the film's writer and director.
In April 2018, Gay partnered with Medium to create a month-long pop-up magazine called Unruly Bodies. The magazine explored the relationship people share with their bodies, through an anthology of essays by 25 writers (including Gay herself).
Themes
Much of Gay's written work deals with the analysis and deconstruction of feminist and racial issues through the lens of her personal experiences with race, gender identity, and sexuality.
Personal life
Gay began writing essays as a teenager; her work has been greatly influenced by a sexual assault she experienced at the age of 12.
Gay is openly bisexual.
In April 2018, Gay shared that she had undergone a sleeve gastrectomy in January 2018.
Works and publications
Fiction
Gay, Roxane (2011). Ayiti. New York/Oregon: Artistically Declined Press. ISBN 978-1-450-77671-4. OCLC 776999100.
— (2014). An Untamed State. New York: Black Cat / Grove Atlantic. ISBN 9780802122513. OCLC 903123484.
— (2017). Difficult Women. New York: Grove Atlantic. ISBN 978-0-802-12539-2. OCLC 957223378.
Non-fiction
Gay, Roxane (2014). Bad Feminist. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-062-28272-9. OCLC 877890878.
— (2017). Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. New York: Harper. ISBN 9780062362599. OCLC 918590664.
Selected short fiction
Gay, Roxane (6 July 2016). "Group Fitness". Oxford American.
— (2013). "The Year I Learned Everything". Prairie Schooner. 87 : 23–41. JSTOR 24640291. open access publication – free to read
Other selected works
Gay, Roxane (2010). Subverting the Subject Position: Toward a New Discourse About Students as Writers and Engineering Students as Technical Communicators (Thesis/dissertation). Houghton, MI: Michigan Technological University. OCLC 774576963.*
CHUEN
Kin 11: Blue Spectral Monkey
I dissolve in order to play
Releasing illusion
I seal the process of magic
With the spectral tone of liberation
I am guided by my own power doubled.
Time/space is a function of different creation matrices which can be mathematically and geometrically postulated.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2018-2019.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Visshudha Chakra (Alpha Plasma)
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