30 Facts About Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay was born on October 15,1974 and is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator.

Roxane Gay was an assistant professor at Eastern Illinois University for four years before joining Purdue University as an associate professor of English.

Roxane Gay is a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, founder of Tiny Hardcore Press, essays editor for The Rumpus, co-editor of PANK, a nonprofit literary arts collective, and the editor for Roxane Gay Mag, which was founded in partnership with Medium.

Roxane Gay was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Michael and Nicole Roxane Gay, both of Haitian descent.

Roxane Gay's mother was a homemaker and her father is owner of GDG Beton et Construction, a Haitian concrete company.

Roxane Gay was raised Catholic and spent her summers visiting family in Haiti.

Roxane Gay attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

Roxane Gay's parents were relatively wealthy, supporting her through college and paying her rent until she was 30.

Roxane Gay was inducted into the Omicron Delta Kappa Circle.

Roxane Gay's dissertation is titled Subverting the Subject Position: Toward a New Discourse About Students as Writers and Engineering Students as Technical Communicators.

Roxane Gay was an associate professor of creative writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Purdue University from August 2014 until 2018.

Roxane Gay announced her departure from Purdue in October 2018, voicing concerns about the fairness of her compensation and noting Purdue had failed to address the issue.

Roxane Gay published a short-story collection, Ayiti, then two books in 2014: the novel An Untamed State and the essay collection Bad Feminist.

Roxane Gay directly confronts complex issues of identity and privilege, but it's always accessible and insightful.

In 2023, Roxane Gay was one of more than 370 New York Times contributors to sign an open letter expressing "serious concerns about editorial bias" in the newspaper's reporting on transgender people.

In 2014, Roxane Gay published her debut novel, An Untamed State, which centers around Mireille Duval Jameson, a Haitian-American woman who is kidnapped for ransom.

In print, on Twitter and in person, Roxane 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.

In 2017, Roxane Gay published Difficult Women, a collection of short stories that highlight women who have lives that differ from society's spectrum of a normal life.

The final issue of Medium's Roxane Gay Magazine was themed 'Power' and was posted on April 3,2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic's global lockdowns.

The screenplay is to be written by Roxane Gay, who is serving as executive producer.

In January 2021, Roxane Gay debuted her newsletter The Audacity, featuring essays by herself and emerging writers on a bi-weekly basis.

Roxane Gay was the editor of The Butter, an online feminist writing site and sister site to The Toast, from November 2014 to August 2015.

Roxane Gay was the guest judge and guest editor of The Masters Review annual fiction anthology in 2017.

Roxane 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.

Roxane Gay edited the book Girl Crush: Women's Erotic Fantasies.

Roxane Gay is a contributor to the 2019 anthology Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Roxane Gay was featured in the 2016 book In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs.

In July 2019, Roxane Gay launched a book club on HBO's Vice News Tonight.

In 2019, Roxane Gay partnered with Tressie McMillan Cottom to create a black feminist podcast titled Hear To Slay, which was set to feature influential black women as guests, including Stacey Abrams, Gabrielle Union, and Ava DuVernay.

Roxane Gay was included in the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list.